


The Twilight Between

by zenelly



Series: The Lotus Verse [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:35:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenelly/pseuds/zenelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing that Demyx wants most in the world is a break from feeling the emotions of other people. He doesn't get that (in fact, it might be the opposite), but what he does get might actually be better. But either Zexion can save his sanity, or be the one thing to push him over the edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting Buried in This Place

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains dubious-consent at times, and severely distressed mental states at others. I will post warnings on specific chapters, so you know what you're getting into. (There is a side-story to this called "Only Light You See," and it can be found on my page, etc etc)
> 
> There is a playlist for this that can be found [here on 8tracks.](http://8tracks.com/zenelly/the-twilight-between)

The hospital buzzes with the muted hums of machines and low voices. Even far away, in the depths of an unused section, the sounds are apparent. Background noise. People talking and chattering and thinking. He hears them, wishes he didn't. It is loud to him, excruciating, and it is not the physical part of the noise that causes him pain.

Brightly tiled floors flow into white walls, the patterns nonsensical and wandering. Standing cool and solid against his back, the walls stretch down and up the hallway, vibrating softly with the motions of people walking. The smells of antiseptic and anesthetic fill his nose, and he breathes them in as though the smell of them alone can soothe his aching head. (They can't, don't.)

As the halls are traversed, footsteps echo and reverberate through the floor and his feet, making him feel almost as if he can count the people within the large building. The vibrations set off the slight throbbing in the heels and balls of his feet, and they ache harder, hurt more, practically sympathetic to the aching of the ground. He wonders absently if the building ever begrudges the people walking inside it, shaking it to its eventual destruction.

The pain in his head flares briefly, throbbing with his pulse and scattering his thoughts. Pressing the heels of his hands against his temples, he bends over slightly, sliding slowly down the wall until he feels the floor catch him before it melts away, disappearing with the rest of the hospital. Darkness fills his eyes and ears, a rushing, pounding noise overtaking the sounds of passersby. Nothing is solid anymore except the whirlpool that is other people. Even in the midst of all this dark, he still feels them, razor-sharp and acidic against his mind. (The world brightens to grey, flickers to black again, never seems to settle on whether it wants to be here or not.)

Feeling finally slides back into his fingers. Shaking hands drag through his hair, tapping anxious rhythms against his skin. Flickers of images press against his mind, like salt in an open wound, flaring bright and sharp. Remembered grief cuddles him and holds him, and he cannot seem to shake it off, attempting to brush its shadowing fingers from his shoulders. It never seems to work. He can't stop himself from trying, trembling hands skittering across the rough fabric of his uniform, brushing off the invisible cold and ice of grief.

Cheerful murmurings of hopeful, too-happy nurses flitter through his ears as sound returns, echoing and large, and he sighs as similarly cheerful thoughts grate against him, their sandpaper-edged sides scraping the raw edges of his mind, and his headache flares again. The surface grief recedes, digging deep within him, replaced by equally painful, nonsensical hope. He knows instinctively that one of the nurses is nervous about something, and that the other one hates her, but is too polite and two-faced to say anything at all about it.

(He wishes he didn't know. Life would be so much easier if he didn't know.)

Demyx looks up tiredly, a sigh stirring the hair of his bangs. His hands sit shaking against the sides of his head. The world reforms itself slowly, colors and images resolving themselves into real shapes and items. Once again, the wall stands cool and solid against his overwarm back, and Demyx leans into it as he reorients himself with the hospital.  
 _  
'I might have to head out to the club tonight…'_ he thinks wearily, dropping his hands to look down the hallway. No one notices when he disappears after a rough time, and so no one has come looking for him yet. For that, he is always grateful. The grief under his skin has finally settled, digging deep like thorns and nettles in his skin, and he would hate to have to feel anyone else on top of that (pressing it down, further in him, bleeding him). The club is the only way he knows to pull the thorns out. Pleasure overwriting pain, overwriting sadness, but still nauseating and still hurtful, and he can never bring himself to really enjoy it.

The alternatives are worse.

It's not like he hasn't tried to ignore it before.

Sighing, Demyx rubs his hands against the floor, tile slippery smooth. He stands slowly, shakily, his vision going dark around the edges. Demyx leans against the wall heavily, feeling it press clean and cool against his cheek. He hates it when a child is almost lost in the ward. The combination of worry, grief, and elation that he has to deal with is almost worse than if the kid had really died. Never bad enough that he wishes the child had died, but horribly rough and acid-etched anyway. Pushing himself away from the wall, he begins to walk down the hallway, back to the noise and friction-slide of other people.

The hospital is large and full of patients and doctors and nurses and cleaning staff and _people_. Not a single one of them is unknown to Demyx, whether they are in his ward or not. He knows their names, the abstract sense of _who_ they are on a level more elemental than even they are aware of. A simple walk to the cafeteria (or to the unused hallway in the Labor and Delivery ward) stretches his senses out to include most of the expansive building, and his mind touches everyone else's along the way. He skims their emotions unintentionally, always has, always will be able to. Even as he walks down the deserted hall, he can feel glimmers of patients on the floors above and below him. Hope, sadness, lassitude, apathy, the certainty of death – Demyx feels them all.

He hates it.

He hates it more than anything.

Not the helping people part. Not the saving people part. Not the making them live again and feel hope again part. Not even the watching them die part. He doesn't mind that even a little bit. He just hates feeling everything they feel. God, there is nothing more in the world that Demyx wishes for than to just be normal and to never know what another people is feeling as intimately as he does. (He dreams of it sometimes, and waking is the hardest thing he has ever done.)

(But he's never able to really get the dream right enough for it to seem _real_. What does an empath know about _not_ feeling the emotions of other people?)

Absently, Demyx reaches down into the pocket of his scrubs and pulls out his cellphone. He flips open the phone, seeing the notification for a missed call and a new text. Both are from Axel. The text reads:  
 _  
"Hey, are you okay, Dem? Worried about you, since your headaches are getting so bad. Txt me back, kk?"_

And Demyx smiles absently at the screen, shakiness slowly leeching from his body, leaving him feeling wrung out and kitten-tired. He types out a reassuring reply quickly before he turns the corner, reentering the bustle of the hospital. Emotions press invasively against him. They seem like solid, living things, and Demyx has to close his eyes, sick from claustrophobia. A trip to the club definitely is in order, he thinks tiredly. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he checks it as he dodges interns and staff on his way back to his own ward.  
 _  
"Don't lie, Dem. You're not OK. I'm gonna pick you up from work, no ifs ands or buts, got it?"  
_  
Demyx just sighs a little. He doesn't bother sending a reply. Axel means what he says (and sometimes, it's a relief to remember that someone is going to take care of him, even when no one else will). There is no arguing with him when he's in this mood, even when Demyx really just wants to protest. Sometimes, he really wishes that Axel will take him on his word and leave him alone, without his concern and worry running razor-sharp fingers down his mind. But…

 _People aren't perfect._

It's a lesson Demyx has learned and forgotten more times than he can count. No matter what they look like on the surface, he always finds himself privy to secrets he didn't want. Brief touches impart nurses that hate everyone they work with while smiling kindly at them all, doctors with fetishes, patients who hurt themselves, or were hurt by the people bringing them in, and he cannot avoid touching them in a hospital. He never wants to know any of it, but he always does. And still he tries to convince himself that someone out there is exactly like they are on the inside.

He's still stupid enough to make himself believe it every once in a while.

(He wonders how people would react to how he is on the inside and knows that no one wants to see the mess that he really is underneath the thin veneer of smiles and absentmindedness.)

Demyx grins and nods at people as he passes them, offers assistance where needed, all the while hiding the pain behind his eyes. They never notice, smiling back at him without a care in their worlds. He's too good at making sure they don't. Axel seems to be the only one who doesn't ever accept his excuses, and he's torn between being grateful and annoyed. (After all, Axel doesn't hurt less than anyone else. He just hurts in a different way.) All of his thoughts stir up his headache again, making it nauseatingly strong, but he's so close now, and he just keeps moving.

Walking through the hospital, Demyx finally makes it to his ward. The swimming, unformed, drugged feelings of children brush against him, softer and less edged than the minds of adults. He smiles more readily when he's here. Children's emotions, while being stronger and less controlled than adults, aren't edged in as much salt and fire, and they make him feel like there's something still able to be salvaged in this world. (He's only able to convince himself of this because he never has to see them later, when they change and warp beyond themselves. It's a lie, but it's a helpful one.)

Demyx feels a wave of concern and relief a second before a large man leans over the nurse's station desk, face grim and stoic. Ice blue eyes flick up and down Demyx, checking him over, before settling on his eyes. The concern fades away, becomes less of a physical presence, and Demyx rocks forward on his heels, feeling its loss like a lack of support.

"You okay?" the man asks gruffly as he stands up straight, crossing his arms, dark brown medical scrubs scratching a protest at the movement. Demyx smiles, though he hides it in the crinkles around his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Lexaeus. Just stepping out for a bit of air."

Lexaeus grunts and looks to one side. "It's Dr. Auger, Nurse Fitz. Get back to work."

(It's always been Lexaeus's way to let Demyx know he cares. That he notices the pattern. Demyx doesn't really care either way. He knows that Lexaeus doesn't know the real reason, and that he's nowhere near guessing what it is.)

(It's a sad existence, but it's his.)

Demyx nods and heads back to his work, silently apologizing to Dr. Auger with a properly ashamed slant to his shoulders. The large man only turns and goes back inside his office, stepping sideways to fit his large frame through the door. His is a subtle language, but Demyx can feel himself relax, understanding that he is forgiven for disappearing during shift. Another few steps, headache screaming behind his forehead, and-

-the world around him starts to distort weirdly, floors elongating and bending like putty around him again, and his mind scans the hallway. Finding an unused room (less noise, less pain from that direction, go there), he quickly darts inside, closing the door behind him.

In the midst of his pain, he hopes that no one will come in behind him. It's a long hope. People are always barging in. Fact of life. Demyx can't think. Can't focus.

Back against the wall, he slumps down to the floor, forehead on his knees and breathing harsh. Everything is melting around him. His own skin feels foreign under his fingers, buzzing, and everyone else's emotions, barely muted at all by the closed door, circle in like vultures. (He wishes he never had to go through with this, knowing that it's a useless wish to begin with.) The club is a certainty now, and he hates going to it when he has work the next day.

The world trembles about him. Collapses around him in a mess of spindly bits and stretchy lengths, contorting madly.

With a deep sigh, he loses his hearing, and the world goes silent save for his heart beat and breathing. Demyx blinks once, twice and finds that he can no longer see, either. Everything is black and light-spotted.

 _'Oh. Here again,'_ he thinks, falling away from his own body. He finds a strange comfort in this non-place, in the dark and quiet. The thud of his heartbeats and the rasping whispers of his breaths fill the space. Part of him thinks that this is what death is like, and he doesn't mind the idea that this is what is waiting for him in the end. It wouldn't be so bad to sink into other people, like he's doing now – lose himself in them, feel them coming in cold and worried from the snow. He seeps into them, feels them as deeply as they feel themselves, and he knows that this will be like every other time he goes to this dark world. It's a swaying place where he doesn't want to leave, cushioned in the non-feeling abyss between other people. (He imagines that this is what normality feels like.)

He wants to stay where he is.

Never leaving.

Never alone within himself.

Never hurting.

Not again.

Within this place, he knows everyone and nothing hurts here, because he's too far away from himself to feel pain. Demyx slides over each person in the building, sharing their thoughts and communing with them briefly as he passes.  
 _  
"-ope he'll be okay…"_

 _"-Does anyone even pay attention to thi-"_

 _"-tupid bitch, hope she dies-"_

 _"Wonder where he's gotten to?"_

 _"Oh come on, that's so not his own kid, who does he think he's kiddin-"_

 _"-ere am I supposed to-"_

 _"-don't even know-"_

 _"…"_

 _  
**"Sora!"**   
_

And he's suddenly slammed back into his own head, world constructing itself faster than ever, sound rushing back into his ears, and he is once again within himself, with everyone else just surrounding. The noise of his gasping breaths is loud, harsh, and his heart thrums within him. Even the dim light of the room is too much at first, and he squeezes his eyes shut. The door is solid, no wavering, and the floor isn't melting away from him. Everything is…

Normal.

His headache has lessened enough that Demyx stands up. He braces himself on the wall, expecting disorientation, and he doesn't get it. Nothing happens. The nausea is gone, no trace of it left behind. He's still shaky, but…. Nothing else. At all. No acid pain of thoughts (well, those are still there, but lessened), no nausea, no dizziness, just… shaky and a little headache. Demyx shakes his head as he opens the door, slipping back into the hallway, pretending that no one could have seen him.

(The hall is empty of visitors, so it might not be too much to ask, for once.)

 _'Strange,'_ he thinks, and it is. He always has to _make_ himself leave if he goes to that in-between space. He's never been thrown back before, and he's never… felt _anything_ like that.

He would wonder what it was, but his headache is crawling back, tendril at a time, and he doesn't care enough to be curious anymore.

As he heads down the hallway, Demyx picks up his charts and checks them over. It's time for another round. He knocks briefly on each door, smiling as he enters the rooms to check how the patients are doing. It's the same conversation over and over again. "Are you in pain, do you need anything, can I help you, are you sleeping, are you hungry?" (Really, Demyx enjoys the easy rhythm of it, of the sleepy and anxious answers and the quiet reassurances.) He smiles at them all, makes light and easy jokes to cheer them up.

Somewhere in there, between reassuring the little redheaded girl that the stars fall from the sky and hover in front of people who are special and talking to a tow-headed little boy about surfing, he feels himself returning to equilibrium.

(Internally and logically, he knows that his definition of equilibrium sucks. The only criterion he has is "not _obviously_ going insane at the moment.")

And then…

He feels curiosity (and isn't that new), because there is a thread of non-pain, of worry, and confusion and blame, and it's _smooth_ against his mind amidst the rock-sharp walls of everyone else. Almost welcoming, in a way. Full of desperation, worry (rock hard, and settling like a lump in the back of Demyx's mind), but it pulls at him, and he doesn't quite know what to do about it.

He follows its urging, intrigued.

And finds a man. Sitting on an uncomfortable hospital bench, hands clasped tightly in front of him, fierce eyes caught on and staring at the closed door in front of him. Slate colored hair falls across his face, and Demyx can see that the other side of his hair goes down further than the side he sees. The man is pale, and his eyes are blue, and Demyx can feel him filling the hallway, emotions like smooth water, parting around him. For all his inner turmoil (and Demyx can _feel_ him think in a way he hasn't known he could), the stranger's face is blank and stoic.

Demyx glances down to his clipboard. He's supposed to check on the kid in the room the person is staring at, but he has the strangest impulse to talk to the man on the bench. (And he's never been one for resisting his impulses.)

"Hey," he says quietly as he is walking forward, feeling strangely as though he is floating through water.

The stranger's focus snaps over to him, and there is a sudden torrent of worry mixed with fear and guilt and irritation, all flooding towards him. None of it shows besides a slight flicker of interest in cobalt blue eyes. There is an eddy of greeting and grudging assessment as he opens his mouth.

"Hello," the man replies, but he adds no more, only going back to his contemplation of the door in front of him.

Cautiously, Demyx takes a few steps closer, looking between the man and the door. He glances down at the clipboard to see the name of the patient inside. _"Sora. Sora Erikson. This must be…"_ And he reads through the patient file, confused. There are no family members listed around the age of the person in front of him.

"My name's Demyx Fitz. You are…?" he trails off, waiting for an answer.

After a moment, the man looks back up at him. "Zexion Erikson." And he falls silent once more, though his eyes do not leave him this time. Curiosity -sweet, and friendly, and singing to him softly- brushes against his raw mind and retreats in a wave, leaving Demyx bereft in its absence. None of Zexion's thoughts show on his face, though the depths of his feelings tempt Demyx so much. To what, he doesn't know.

The blonde takes a brief moment to compose himself, tingling prickling up and down his arms. "What are you doing out here?" he asks, wondering why Zexion is outside the room when he should be sitting next to his…son? Brother? Cousin? (Relative.)

"That's my little brother in there." Zexion's fingers clench harder, the only outward sign of the sudden crash of grief/worry that Demyx feels coming from him. That by itself erased any spot of doubt in Demyx's mind that he was lying. "They … won't let me in to see him."

"Oh?" And Demyx studies the door and the man in front of it curiously. He wanders closer still, leaning against the wall next to Zexion.

 _"I just want to see him... Make sure he's okay…."_

The thought drifts across the space between him and Zexion, and it is flavored in smoky and subtle flavors, the emotions behind it complex and fluid. Demyx welcomes it into his mind, ignoring the worry and paranoia flickering in the edges of his thoughts. (Why is this so easy with this one person? Why does it not hurt, he wants it more and closer)

Zexion shrugs a shoulder expressively. "The on-staff nurses won't let me in. They won't tell me why either." He clenches his hands once more, turning his eyes back to the door. "He has pneumonia. And they _won't. Let. Me. See him._ " His voice is determined not to break, though the swelling passion that Demyx can feel emanating from him fills the voids in his words.

Looking over at the door, Demyx searches the air for feelings coming beyond it, but he is overwhelmed by the emotions of the man next to him. Nothing comes from the boy inside the room. Nevertheless, he feels the worry and sheer _need_ to see his brother coming from Zexion and he finds he cannot…. He just cannot….

Cannot _not_ try and make this man happy, as strange as it is.

"So, uh, you want me to let you into his room?"

(Even Zexion's shock and surprise are sweet like spices.)


	2. All of it Tastes Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _(The large group of sigils behind the floating, nonsensical letters morph into the shape of a flower, unfurling in waves of motion and crackling sounds, and it looks so familiar that it burns into his mind and all he sees is Zexion in a way that is too intuitive for words.)_

"You…would do that?"

Demyx tilts his head a little to his left and his eyes half-close leisurely, finding a strange sort of pleasure in feeling someone else's emotions so easily for once. "Why wouldn't I? I mean, he's your brother and visiting hours aren't up yet. Of course you should see him."

Blue eyes are shut tightly. A tide of gratitude and relief swamp him briefly before retreating as though suddenly and strictly reigned in. (Still they are there, lurking behind the pale, soft skin over Zexion's temples, and Demyx grasps out with his mind, feeling like he can touch them again, even as he runs into smooth, smooth walls surrounding that bright mind.)

"Thank you." The words are tight and whispered, and Demyx, pulling back within himself, gets the feeling that the serious young man doesn't say them all that often. In response, he smiles at Zexion, stepping towards the door.

"Don't mention it." As he hears Zexion stand up behind him, he continues. "No, really, don't mention it. I'll try and find out why they wouldn't let you in, but I'm sure they have their reasons and I'd really like _not_ to be reprimanded for this." The door opens easily (Obviously. It's unlocked, after all) and he ushers Zexion inside the small, white, hospital room. (A bed against one side, tile over the floor, door leading to the outside, the soft hiss and buzz of the machines that are attached to the patients, and this man in the center of it all, like gravity.)

On the bed, a brown-haired boy struggles upright, blue eyes wide and wondering. The second he spots Zexion, the boy just lights up, a large smile stretching the skin of his lips. Demyx steps to the side and makes himself as unobtrusive as possible, busying himself with rearranging stock on the counter beside the boy's bed.

(It's a skill that he's learned over time, and it's possibly one of the most useful things he knows.)

"Sora," Zexion says, and Demyx has to close his eyes against the swelling of relief and love that flows from him. For all of the depth of emotion that he feels, only the slight relaxation around cobalt blue eyes and the minute upturn of Zexion's lips show it. Demyx, as he reopens his eyes to see these tender expressions, wonders how Zexion hides it all. (He knows from seeing other people's impressions of him that the only things he's good at hiding are pain and anger. Not everything. But it's enough, most days.)

(He notes distantly that his headache is gone as though it was never there, and that he feels…more normal than he has since childhood.)

"Hiya, Zexy! Didja miss me?" the boy (only about six or seven, Demyx notes as he checks the charts again) asks cheerfully, though his voice is ragged and hoarse and tired. Demyx can't help but smile at the vivacious glee and adoration Sora feels because of Zexion.

Zexion shakes his head, seemingly stern. "I can't believe you got yourself sick, Sora."

Sora only pouts, looking up at Zexion disbelievingly. "I'm fiiine!" he whines, squirming in his bed so much Demyx is almost afraid he'll fall out. The boy begins coughing wildly, covering his mouth with his hands ineffectually. After a few terrifyingly harsh coughs, he subsides, laying back against his pillows weakly.

"Fine. I'm sure." Zexion raises one eyebrow, crossing his arms. From his vantage point near the countertops, Demyx can see his fists, clenched hard against his sides in the fabric of his grey sweater. (He's wearing a grey sweater and jeans and tennis shoes, and Demyx has the sudden realization that he's never thought someone could be as attractive as Zexion is before.) "That's why you were just coughing like you were dying," he continues wryly.

Looking abashed, Sora stoutly nods, not giving up. "Yes. I was just trying to get the hair out of me. Like how Griever does at home."

Demyx stifles his laugh as he gets the fuzzy image of a grey and white cat, fluffy and large, hacking up a fur ball. His entertainment fades in a second as another picture -this one of a stern looking brown-haired man sitting in a chair, petting the cat as he reads- floods into his head. The image is accompanied by a wave of homesickness, and Demyx watches Sora hide it bravely, putting up a front for his brother.

"Griever is a cat. You are not."

"I could be."

Zexion sighs a little, but his exasperation is contradicted by the relieved curve of his lips. "But you're not."

"…no, I'm not," Sora agrees sadly, looking at his lap morosely. After a second, he brightens up, turning to Demyx. "Hey, hey, hey, can you turn me into a cat he- whoa your hair looks like a COCKATOO!"

Turning from the counter towards the bed with a smile, Demyx leans in to stage-whisper at the boy, "I don't know if they can turn you into a cat, but they've started turning me into a bird!" and he begins to mime bird-walking, clucking and folding his arms into wings to hear Sora laugh, although the boy's laughs are hard and rasping. As he pecks his way around the room, he catches Zexion's eyes, and they are wide and blue and smiling.

(Zexion's gratitude reaches out and hugs him gently, thankfully. Demyx almost loses track of what he's doing in the sweet contemplation of such a soft emotion.)

And he laughs himself, straightening up and walking back over to Sora's bed. "No, seriously, you'll be fine. They'll let you out in about two weeks or so, from what it says on your charts. How in the world did you get pneumonia, anyway?"

"He spent the night at a friend's house," Zexion says caustically. Demyx shakes his head against the disapproval that he feels emanating from the other man, his smile still in place. "He got it the next few days. I told you that boy was a bad influence on you!" he continues to Sora, a frown creasing his brow.

Sora somehow manages to pout while still grinning, which is impressive for anyone (much less a kid), whining, "But Zexy! I like Riku! He's my bestest friend!"

"It's his fault that you're sick now!" and Zexion sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I'll have to talk to Dad about this."

"Noooooo! Don't tell Dad! He already doesn't like Riku's family because of _his_ dad!" Sora starts tearing up, blue eyes impossibly wide and glistening and he begins coughing harshly, curling in over himself, the distress tightening his throat. "I," cough cough, "wanna," cough, "be Ri-," cough, "ku's friend…"

Almost immediately, Zexion looks worried, taking a half step forward. "Hey, don't get upset…. I just…" he sighs roughly, "alright, I won't talk to Dad. I'll have to tell him that you got sick while over at Riku's, but nothing else, okay?"

Coughing weakly for a second more, Sora nods and falls back, pale and weary against his sheets.

Demyx puts down the clipboard to do his routine tests, checking the messy haired boy's blood pressure and heart rate and fixing a new IV for him. "Hey, no worries. Just rest up, and you'll be out of here in no time."

"But I'm bored!" Sora murmurs hoarsely, light voice cracking in odd places. "I wanna _do_ something!"

Demyx sends a questioning look over at Zexion, trying to keep Zexion from thinking too much (worry and guilt and depression are converging on him, and Demyx feels the unwarranted _need_ to make sure that Zexion doesn't get lost in those dark thoughts). Zexion answers after a pause, his swamping and flooding emotions held in check behind his eyes. "He's very active, normally."

"Ah," Demyx says delicately, continuing with his examining. "Well, you seem like you're in pretty good shape. I'll try and see what I can do to get something in here for you, okay? Some video games or something."

Immediately, Zexion sighs and Sora brightens up. "Do you have Empire Souls? I can ask for my memory card and then I can finish the game! Finally! Won't Riku be jealous," he says half to himself, smiling at his hands. "He wanted to beat it before me, but that won't happen now!"

"Ah, I'll see what I can do," Demyx laughs, "but you need to rest, okay? You're going to be very tired for the next few days, anyway."

Weakly, as though movement is getting harder for him, Sora looks at Zexion, his curiosity insistent against the edges of Demyx's mind. "Does that mean…" the boy yawns in the middle, blinking sleepily before continuing, "that I don't have to go to school?"

Zexion shakes his head, the corners of his lips tilting up in a near-invisible half-smile. "Yes, Sora, that means you don't have to go to school."

"Awesome," Sora murmurs, turning slightly on his side, his eyes drifting further closed.

A beep comes from the pocket of Zexion's jeans, and he digs out a cell phone, checking the screen. After only a bare second, he looks up again, stepping across the small distance to stand next to Sora's bed. Zexion reaches down, touching Sora's cheek with infinite gentleness. "I have to go now. Dad wants to talk and visiting hours are almost up."

"Okay." Sora snuggles further into the bedding, eyes only half open. "Love you, Zexy" he yawns.

"You too, brat," Zexion replies. "See you soon."

Despite his words, Demyx notices that Zexion seems reluctant to leave the room. He stops every few feet to look at Sora, and his worry is evident in his stance. Demyx treads over to the pale man, smiling reassuringly (and marveling that, for once, the smile doesn't seem hard or fake inside his skin). "Hey, if you want me to, I'll keep an eye on him while I'm on shift. You know, check in on him often and make sure he's okay."

Gratitude floods Zexion's blue, blue eyes when he looks up at Demyx and he nods. "That would be…I would really appreciate that."

"It's not a problem," Demyx assures, reaching out to place a friendly hand on Zexion's shoulder.

And his thumb brushes against the bare, pale wing of Zexion's collarbone.

( _Smooth_ , his mind registers in the brief moment it has before it's completely overwhelmed.)

A whirlwind envelops him, text-based and white and ripping. He sees the same severe-looking man and another -blond and shorter, face also hardened but somehow softer around the edges. Worry, yellow and sickly green, a handprint on otherwise blank and empty colors, spreads, forming the image of Sora and it is laced with blue for some reason. (Words are flying at him constantly, thoughts that pass too quickly for him to understand. He reaches out to touch them-)

-and they stop, the noise of invisible rustling pages almost deafening. (It seems like Zexion thinks in words, not pictures, and Demyx only sees emotions in them as colors and this is amazing, why has he never seen someone else's mind like this before?) Studying the letters curiously once the clamor ceases, he takes a step forward. The sigils draw themselves up into intricate shapes away from him and begin glowing palely, colorlessly, their patterns shifting and incomprehensible. He gets the feeling that they are curious about his presence here, are wary and unused to this sort of intrusion.

But still they extend appreciation towards him, and the colors that have been there don't lessen. A few of the letters pulled away from their fellows, threading over to hover in his reach. He trails his fingers in them, and the tips of his fingers warm up, turning pink with the heat.

(The large group of sigils behind the floating, nonsensical letters morph into the shape of a flower, unfurling in waves of motion and crackling sounds, and it looks so familiar that it burns into his mind and all he sees is _Zexion_ in a way that is too intuitive for words.)

"Thank you," he hears Zexion say as the other shifts back so his thumb no longer touched Zexion's skin, and the words are written in blue in front of him, glowing gratitude and relief and a multitude of things that are subtle and nuanced and _personal_ and he marvels at this (this is knowing how someone _thinks_ , he's seeing Zexion's very mind) before he gets pulled back between his eyes and he can see Zexion again, pale and luminescent and watching him with warm, dark eyes.

Demyx blinks briefly and smiles at him, slightly shaken. (He can still see the flower, sinking and large behind his eyes.) "Y-yeah, you're welcome."

The man nods, his hair falling with the movement, and he finally pulls away from Demyx's hand completely. The last of the words, which had clung to the edges of his vision, fell away. With a single glance back at the sleepy Sora, Zexion sighs and leaves the room.

 _'You know, he's right,'_ Demyx hears distantly, the voice sounding like Zexion's. _'His hair_ does _look like a cockatoo.'_

A laugh is startled out of him, and he covers his mouth quickly, smiling into his palm. Turning around, he sighs kindly at Sora, struggling to stay awake for a few minutes longer. He walks over, places his hand on Sora's forehead, is startled by how _rough_ the sleepy child is. But even with the jagged edges resting against his palm, he is not hurt, a glass pane of protection hovering between him and the sharpness.

He pushes tiredness through his hand, willing Sora to sleep and rest. With only a few more tired blinks, the brown-haired boy gives in, sighing as he settles into the pillows. His eyes flutter shut and soon he is sleeping heavily. Demyx tilts his head curiously as he brushes Sora's hair back, threading comfort into the boy's hidden nervousness and sending him into a deeper sleep. He hadn't known that Sora was scared of sleeping alone. With a shrug (he can do nothing more here), he checks the IV again and leaves, turning off the light as he does.

As he half-closes the door to Sora's room, he feels a vibration against his hip. And another. Demyx reaches down to his pocket and pulls out his phone, smiling again when he sees Axel's name across the screen. Flipping open his phone, he holds it up to his ear and answers.

"Hey there, Axel! What's up?"

He hears an irritated sigh coming from the other line, and he grins easily as he walks down the hallway, wondering absently which direction Zexion went. "Don't try to change the subject, Dem. How are _you?_ "

"First, there wasn't a subject to change, and second, I'm fine, Axel, really, I am. I had a headache earlier, but I'm doing much better now."

There is a disbelieving silence.

"I'm telling the truth."

"Really." It isn't a question, and Demyx flinches slightly, feeling a pang of guilt hit him. Has he really been acting that odd recently? (What worries him most is that he can't really remember….)

With a sigh, he replies, "Yes, really. I'm…actually, I don't have a headache at all anymore, come to think of it." The surprise he feels is evident in his voice, and he places a hand on his forehead, expecting the pulsating pain to reform at any moment.

"Come to think of… How do you just…did you take any medication for it?" Axel asks finally after cutting himself off twice, and Demyx can hear him shift the phone onto his shoulder with a small grunt.

"No. That's the weird part. It just … went away."

Axel grunts again, and Demyx wanders over to the window, listening to his friend huff in irritation at something. "Without you taking any Tylenol? I'm sorry, but your headaches don't just 'go away', Dem," he finally says.

Demyx looks out over the parking lot of the hospital, humming noncommittally. "I know they don't, but this one did. And it was getting to be a pretty bad one too. And then…" He stops.

And then he saw Zexion.

And his headache vanished.

"And then…?"

Shaking his head, Demyx refocuses on the window glass in front of him, pressing warm fingertips to the cold, clear glass. "I took care of a few patients and by the time you called, it was over. Like it had never been there. I'm not sure why."

"That's odd."

Demyx nods a little, looking down at the small figure of a man walking across the snowy parking lot, long black jacket flapping in the wind. "It really is. I'm not complaining, but I'd like to know why."

(Below him, Zexion turns around to look at the hospital for a second before he gets into a small black car, leaving the parking lot almost reluctantly.)

(Immediately, Demyx wants him back, wants him to turn the car around and come back upstairs so they can talk and watch over Sora as he sleeps and so he can feel the same sort of relaxed lack of strain around him.)

"…Dem?"

Snapping back to focus, Demyx shakes his head to clear it. "What?"

He can hear Axel's worry in the cuts and clicks of his consonants –and really, the other man worries too much sometimes–, "You okay? You spaced on me there."

"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, just got a little distracted."

In the small, resigned silence that follows, Demyx knows that Axel does not believe him. It is par for course when dealing with him, and Demyx has just learned to live with that fact, as sad as it could be. (And really, what sort of world is it when your own best friend doesn't believe anything you say any more? (More importantly, what does it say about him?))

"What in the world did you get distracted by?" Axel sighs; Demyx can hear him shake his head. Just as he's about to answer, Axel barrels on, probably waving a hand manically. "Never mind, it probably doesn't matter. So, what are you doing tonight?"

Demyx rolls his eyes fondly, shouldering his cell phone and sticking a hand into his scrubs pocket, feeling the seams of the corners and bottoms with soft-touching fingertips. "Nothing really."

"Demyx…," Axel warns, a slight growl in his voice.

"I'm not lying! I promise, I'm not doing anything!"

Axel huffs slightly. "Anything at all?"

Shifting his shoulders under the scratchy fabric of his scrubs, Demyx replies reassuringly, "Look, I'm planning on going home, having a really nice warm dinner, and then I'm going to bed. It's been a long day, and I'm tired."

"Are you going to _actually_ eat and sleep?" Axel questions harshly. Demyx winces slightly at the tone of his voice. Almost immediately, Axel softens, apologizing by continuing with, "You haven't eaten well for days. Or slept, for that matter. Don't think I don't know."

An almost painful swelling of gratitude fills him, and Demyx smiles at the fingerprints he's leaving on the glass with his free hand. This is one of the moments where knowing that Axel cares so much is a good thing. ( _When he's too far away to feel,_ his mind supplies, and he quickly silences it.) "I'm hungry today, Axel. I'm going to eat real food for once, and then I'm going to bed so I can wake up for my run tomorrow."

"And you're not going anywhere?"

Laughing a little, the blonde nurse shakes his head. His friend is repeating himself again, and he's already been away from his shift too long for the second time that day. It is time to stop the conversation, no matter how much he (sort of) enjoys Axel's fussing. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise! I'm just going to go home, grab something to eat, and go to bed, alright? I have to go now; Lexaeus is probably looking for me again. Alright, night, Axel."

Demyx is surprised to find out as he hangs up the phone - cutting Axel's worried voice off-, that for once he actually means it.


	3. Innocence Looks Good on You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He drags a hand across his face. Demyx watches as his fingertips catch on the up-sweeps of his cheekbones, in the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the weary lines between his eyebrows. Weariness oozes out of him, sloughing off his shoulders to pool around his feet, dragging and dark._

Sunlight stretches in through the window, dances over dust motes on its way to the rest of the room, touches Demyx's cheek and eyelashes with warm and curious fingertips. Blinking sleepily, Demyx rouses to full awareness, stretching under his covers like a large cat. His toes flex out into the cold morning air, straining for clean, icy air. Slowly, Demyx opens his eyes completely, nose half buried in the pillowcase. Something seems strange....

Ah.

His head.

His mind.

...none of it hurts.

 _That's... strange_ , Demyx thinks. Not unwelcome, just strange. Even more odd is how the world _doesn't_ start shifting sideways, or upside down, or distort to one edge. At all. And he can even think. (Days where he feels like this are normally accompanied in some way by a hangover, or gravel-chafed skin around his knees and elbows, but (he checks) his skin is clear and unmarred, and his head doesn't even ache a little.)

Beeping sounds from the floor, and Demyx flings an arm out, searching blindly for his phone with scrabbling fingertips. He finds it (eventually) and grabs it, fumbling with it briefly when his hands don't respond fast enough to the weight of the phone. Pressing the button in the center silences the irritating noise, and he stops moving, sinking imperceptibly into the mattress again. It's early enough to get up, if the sunlight is anything to go by, but his bed is comfortable and warm and he can see the snow lining his window. His phone goes off again, and he winces, silencing it properly this time.

With a sigh, he sits up, blanket falling away from his bare chest. Chill air swirls around him, against him, and he shivers before scooting the rest of the way out from under the covers. His toes search cautiously for the bare floor, cringing at the cold hardwood. Demyx yawns as he slowly stands, stretching out the kinks and small aches in his spine, phone still in hand.

He twists to the side, cracking his spine with a satisfying series of _pops_ before he shuffles from the room, barely avoiding hitting the door frame with his shoulder. His stomach growls hungrily. Pausing in surprise, Demyx looks down at his abdomen.

"Huh," he murmurs. "Looks like breakfast is in order."

At the thought of food, his stomach rumbles louder, pleading.

Walking to the fridge through a maze of junk and clutter, he starts pulling out plates and utensils and food, making scrambled eggs with a half-forgotten kind of uncertainty. He hasn't made… he hasn't cooked in a long time. (Hell, he's just grateful that all of his ingredients are still fresh.) The sizzling of the pan fills his small apartment, and Demyx stares absently at the eggs, pushing them with a spatula occasionally as he tries to remember how long it has been since he had last eaten. Last…week? At least one week since he had made something at home.

He shivers, flesh prickling with the realization that he could have collapsed at any time in the past few days.

But he is hungry now, and his eggs have finished cooking. He turns around, searching in a distressingly dirty sink for a clean plate, eventually finding one that isn't too scummy. Piling the eggs onto his plate, Demyx grabs a fork and starts eating. He finishes them quickly, checking his phone for the time.

"Shiiiiiit, late for running…." Demyx swears, standing swiftly and rushing to his room, shucking his pajama bottoms even as he pulls on a soft cotton shirt and his jacket and grabs a pair of running shorts. Donning the shorts as soon as his pants are off and fishing a pair of socks out from a pile of clothes, Demyx scuttles into his living room. He toes on socks and shoes as quickly as he can before tucking his phone and keys inside his shorts' pocket and tearing out the door.

(He hates missing running. It's one of the only times he can convince his brain to shut off for a bit and just leave him alone.)

So he scurries down the steps to his apartment, hitting the pavement with soft, wet slaps of his feet, cold air prickling against his cheeks and calves. Within a few strides, he's hit a rhythm, leg muscles stretching warm and tight. One street later and he starts thinking instead only running.

And as it has done for the entire night before, his mind turns to Zexion.

With the rasp and grind of other people sliding by him as he runs, it becomes even more amazing how smooth Zexion was in comparison. Demyx has never met anyone like that before. Even Axel hurts, and Axel is the only person who cares enough to stay with him. Stretching into motion, his strides lengthen, propelling him faster as he rounds a corner, crunching the snow beneath his heels. Every breath he takes is lined with ice, coating the inside of his nostrils. In complete contrast to how he normally reacts to people, he wanted to stay near Zexion, wanted to actually run out after him and make him stay.

Brick blurs past. The echoing sound of him running is a steady rhythm around him, like a heartbeat. He turns familiar corners, nodding slightly to the slices of pain that mean people, smile fixed on his face, easy and believable. Their curiosity and tiredness scratch at him as they wave back. (He tries his best to ignore it. It only works so well, but he doesn't have any better way to get rid of it.)

(He can feel his pulse in his temple, clouding his thoughts.)

He runs faster, legs and hips swinging into the longer steps required. His mind can keep up with it though, and the effort it takes to speed up only protects him for a few minutes. Seeping through the barriers of motion, poisonous and drugging pain digs in. The thorns from yesterday that mysteriously vanished come back in full, digging force. Furious, Demyx pushes himself further, and, as he rounds another corner-

-traction under his heels is gone, and his feet slide on a patch of ice that he hadn't seen. The sudden rush of vertigo is like sound reopening into his world, loud and panicked.

His arm and elbow are caught under him as he lands heavily, skidding a foot on the rough ground. Demyx's breath hisses through his teeth and he swears quietly, unknown words made of consonants and sibilant noises. He winces as he pushes himself up, feeling a sharp pain darting up his wrist. Shifting so he can stand, he slowly flexes and stretches. Nothing seems too badly hurt. Large, dull aches sprout up his back and along his hip, but they are simply ignored. There isn't the bite of a serious injury, and he scrapes his hand along the scratches that are seeping small streams of blood. He centers his weight on his legs. Takes a step.

Demyx loves the way he feels after he runs, loves the way his muscles feel all liquid-loose and flowing, like gravity shifts with every step after he stops running. His legs are trembling and he feels almost like he can't breathe, air huge and not-quite-enough in his lungs as he gasps for oxygen.

And then he's on his knees again, arms shaking and barely holding him up, trying to breathe past the black and iridescent spots on his eyes and ringing in his ears. The world goes dark and every noise echoes back to him, tinny, distorted, distant. Flashes and pulses of people rush towards him. Flinching, the blonde nurse loses the small amount of balance he has, landing on his shoulder and side with a loud, pained exhalation that drives what little air he had left out of his lungs.

"Sh-shit," he wheezes. Everyday life flickers around him, and he can't…can't focus, lost in the halfway space of tiredness/hurry/worry/sadness/joy that swarm him, maul him. Forcefully, he pushes them back, keeping little needles of them embedded in his palms where they sink in, poisoning his blood with their insidious pain. He takes deep, heaving breaths, trying to erase the spots in his sight.

The pavement is rough as he levers himself up. He leans into the wall as he does, brick scraping his shoulder. Demyx's entire body shakes constantly, huge, wracking, painful shivers. Nausea rises within him, and he claps a hand over his mouth, the gesture futile in the face of his body's denial. Just in time, he moves it and-

-he curls in half, arm braced on the wall, mouth open as the remains of the only meal he's stomached in days leave him in a forceful, disgusting torrent of bile. Another wave of lightning-bolt emotion swarms him, and he sobs helplessly, defenseless. It sweeps over him, under him, through him, leaving nothing unscathed. His stomach twists and revolts again. Vainly, he tries to resist, tries to recover, but he's helpless, weak. He can do nothing. He's useless against this; it tears through him like a chainsaw, bloody, messy, no identifiable remains left behind. And now everything is laced in ice and fire and lightning, with no respite to be had.

But slowly, so slowly, it backs off, settling inside him and digging in, spines of barbed wire within his tender mind. Breathing burns. He can still taste the bile in his mouth, and as he straightens, he wipes off his mouth with a shudder of disgust.

His head is pounding, straight darts of pain in his skull.

God, he just wants it to take longer for once. For once, he woke up without a headache. And now it is back. Agonizing and distracting. Demyx clutches his arms closer to his torso, allowing himself one last shiver before he pushes off and starts running back to his apartment, his rhythm stuttering and uneven.

The shakiness doesn't leave him the entire run.

He stumbles back into his apartment, feeling nauseous and unsteady as he leans against the wall beside the door. Fuck. Work is going to be miserable if he keeps feeling like this. But he can't miss any work. Lexaeus will skin him if he does, and the doctor is large enough to make the possibility real.

Fire laces across his skin a bare second before a knock sounds from the door. Demyx flinches, but he staggers upright, opening the door for the person. Immediately, he feels a blast of heat, of worry twined with relief and concern, and a tall man sweeps inside his small apartment, filling the space with his crackling fire of emotions. The man brushes a few loose strands of carmine hair away from his face before leveling his gaze at Demyx.

"Hi, Axel," Demyx says weakly, knowing that he looks like shit and unable to do anything about it.

Axel doesn't reply for a long moment, but eventually he shakes his head, hair whipping around in its ponytail, tension bleeding and snapping off his shoulders. "You look like hell. I thought you said you weren't going to go anywhere."

Demyx winces at a particularly strong flare of hurt, but shakes his head to clear it, trying to focus beyond the pain he feels. (The barbed wire in his mind digs in a little deeper.) "I didn't go anywhere. It's been… a bad morning, okay? I fell down while I was running."

For a brief moment, it doesn't seem like Axel is going to believe him. But he sighs, eyes the scrapes up Demyx's arms and leg, relaxes, his fire cooling to bearable. "Still going in to work?" he asks with the tone of someone who knows he is already beaten.

"I have to," is all Demyx answers.

Axel sighs again as Demyx gets ready, green eyes constantly observing him, making sure he doesn't do anything too strange. The redheaded man looks tired, an invisible weight pressing dark lines into the skin beneath his eyes. "You know," Axel starts wearily, "you could just call in sick for a day."

Laughing softly, Demyx wanders back over with his scrubs in hand, pulling on jeans and tennis shoes as he goes. "What, and ruin it for when I actually need them? Nah. I'll head in. We're short-staffed as it is."

"Just… take care of yourself, okay? You're important too."

Demyx is stopped by the seriousness of Axel's tone, and he looks over at his friend with wide eyes. Axel is staring at him, verdant eyes tired and hopeless. They watch each other carefully, and Demyx can't help but reach out with his mind, closer to the fire, trying to figure it out-

-and the pulsating heat of worry and of heartache catches his mental fingers, singeing the tips. He draws back slowly, fighting to think past his head's persistent pounding.

"I'll…" he finally starts, hesitant. "I have tomorrow and the next day off, alright? Are… can we hang out then? I sorta feel like I haven't actually gotten to see you for a while, and I do need to rest…."

That does the trick. Axel smiles, quick and like lightning, the weariness fading from his frame. "Yeah, Dem. That'll be nice." He starts walking to the door, pulling keys out of his pocket. "C'mon, let's get you to work."

Behind him, Demyx lets out a relieved breath, and he follows his friend down to his car, hopping inside for a ride. They chat quietly for part of the ride, pausing the conversation when Demyx hears a favorite song on the radio and turns up the music loud enough to rattle windows, belting the words of the song out into the cold streets' air.

Axel drops him off laughing.

(Demyx counts this as a good sign. If Axel still feels like laughing at his antics, then he hasn't been too big of a burden on his best friend.)

He walks into the hospital, the heavy press of the overhead fans ruffling his clothes. Nodding to the desk nurses as he hurries past, Demyx dodges interns and patients, making his way to the elevator. He presses the call button, shifts anxiously from foot to foot, can't seem to stop moving. His head aches brightly as the elevator pings its arrival, and he steps inside, only to slump against the wall tiredly, sagging like a wilting flower. Pulses of people scream past him in a blur of movement as he rides upstairs, and Demyx winces away from all of them.

(He has to force himself to leave the confines of the elevator and head for the nurse's room.)

He changes with a ruthless sort of efficiency and grabs his charts and clipboard to begin working. The beginning of his shift is rough and uncomfortable, full of screaming pain and quietly bleeding anxiety, and he hides it all beneath the smooth casing of a smile, taking care of his patients with a gentle touch that belies his internal turmoil, even as the multicolored floor blends towards the white walls beneath his feet.

But Demyx hurries through it. Today is a busy day for the ward, and Lexaeus doesn't tolerate slackers.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, though, he manages to snag a few minutes for himself, pacing along the corridors with restless legs that ache with countless bruises. The cold of the ward seems to be seeping in, crawling and freezing him piece by piece, ever encroaching and ever expanding inside him, too fast to be countered by Demyx's own internal body heat; but none of the cold numbs the pain within him, none of it fades with the icy touch. The cold serves only to make the barbs bite deeper, and they dig tighter inside the tender psyche that lays open and soft-bellied to it.

And he gets to the point where he can't think anymore, where the world is turning into pipe-cleaner-fuzzy colors, and then it's like-

-water makes everything clear, magnifying and warming.

"…Demyx, right?" the quiet voice stops him in his agitated tracks, and his desperation dissipates, soothed like a burn under ice. Demyx turns to his right, finally seeing Zexion in one of the hospital chairs, floors and walls separating into clear and concise beings for the first time all afternoon.

 _Same place as yesterday,_ he realizes, blinking slightly at the other man. He is slightly disoriented by the sudden lack of pain between his temples, but he's not complaining at all. Not after the morning he's had. "Ah, yeah, that's me," Demyx finally answers. "What can I do for you, Zexion?"

Briefly, Zexion's eyes flicker to the door to Sora's room, but Demyx can feel the eddy of reluctance that emanates from the pale man. He shifts in the chair awkwardly, stands to face him with the stiffness that comes from sitting too long. "I was wondering…" he trails off. Zexion looks to the side, eyes dark and serious and tired.

"Need to see Sora again?" Demyx asks cheerfully, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth. "I can let you in again, if you want."

Gratitude presses against him like a fond cat, there in leaning pressure and then gone. Zexion closes his eyes, taking a shaky breath to steady himself. A few seconds later, he reopens them, nodding slightly to the blonde nurse. "If I'm getting you in trouble…."

(A strange tightness invades Demyx's chest.)

Demyx waves his words off easily, ignoring the unknown feeling. "Not a problem. Just go on inside. I'll stay out here and make sure you two aren't bothered, okay?" He opens the door, smiles at the excited Sora (who is straining upright on the bed) and waits for Zexion to enter.

"That would be most appreciated," Zexion murmurs as he slips inside, a relieved cant to his lips.

The closing click of the door is soft.

Slumping into the chairs outside Sora's room (and ignoring the skittering he feels across his skin, because the chair is _warm_ and _Zexion's warmth is still sunk into the fabric of this chair_ ), Demyx blows tendrils of hair out of his face. He is comfortably warm again, feeling seeping back in his fingertips bit by bit, and it's like he forgets sometimes how his own skin works. Feeling is foreign and unnatural after he gets so cold, but he curls up in the chair anyway, huddling close to the small, lingering bit of skin-heat still left.

A flare of _some_ emotion, too painful and indistinct to name, tears through him from some other floor of the hospital, and Demyx bends over himself in the chair, trying desperately to get enough air into his lungs. He's dizzy. So fucking dizzy, the floor is disappearing again. He claws his way out of the sudden whirlwind to attempt to recognize what's going on. It takes him a second, but he gets it, all of a sudden.

Loss. That's what it is, swimming around him and digging inside him, frantic and lonely claws of it. So much loss, and it just...

God, it just _hurts._

How does he keep going like this? His blood pounds in his veins, too loud and too bright, fit to burst through his skin. Heat and cold dance merrily across his bones and marrow, and he just wants to _scream._ It doesn't abate. It will never leave him, and he will be constantly in the throes of this torture, he will _die_ like this, and he can't imagine lasting long, but-

-but he sits up anyway, eyes tightly closed, because people are coming from somewhere and he shouldn't be seen like this. He can't afford to be seen in that much pain. (How can't they notice? It feels like the pain is oozing out of him like sludge, black and opaque and _visible,_ but no one can see it!)

Fingers brush against his shoulder, sending a relieving flood of concern through his entire body.

"You alright?" Zexion asks him, and Demyx _wants._

Wants, with a sort of primal hunger that makes his mouth run dry, to reach out and pull him close and keep him as a shield against the world, because that one simple touch has erased all of the loss, all of the guilt, all of _everything,_ and it's too frightening to imagine living without this ease, too alone, too overwhelming, and he's _scared_ of the pain for the first time.

The concern drifts away, distant but still there. Demyx takes his head out of his hands (when had it gotten there?) to see Zexion crouching in front of him, hand hovering between them.

"I'm fine," Demyx croaks out, coughing once to clear his throat. "Fine. I had a rough start, that's all."

Zexion raises an eyebrow, but, unlike Axel, he drops the subject. Instead, he stands, hands on his knees and moving like it hurts, like everything aches, and then he just collapses into the chair beside Demyx, sighing harshly. He drags a hand across his face. Demyx watches as his fingertips catch on the up-sweeps of his cheekbones, in the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the weary lines between his eyebrows. Weariness oozes out of him, sloughing off his shoulders to pool around his feet, dragging and dark.

Cautiously, Demyx inquires, "Are _you_ okay? You seem more tired than I do." He eyes the invisible waves of exhaustion that Zexion emanates, but his gaze always returns to the other man's face, searching the lines and curves of it for... something. He's not quite sure what he's looking for; only that he _is_ looking.

A few long moments of silence later, Zexion answer, his voice heavy with weariness. "It's been a long day. Sora's in the hospital, I have grad school work to do, our parents are still out of town because they haven't managed to book a flight back in yet, I just hate hospitals…" He fists one hand in his hair, tugging the long strands roughly before his hand falls to pinch the bridge of his nose. The gestures set off a rush of strange relaxation and the stress hovering around Zexion fades a little. Demyx blinks.

 _Must be stress gestures,_ he thinks quietly, eyeing the man next to him again.

"You gonna be okay?"

And Zexion smiles at the soft question, one corner of his mouth twisting upwards in a strained, tired sort of appeasement. "I should be." He rubs his face with his hands before continuing, "It'll get easier once Dad's here, to be honest. Having another person to help keep Sora company, and one that doesn't have to wait for the right person to be here to let him in…" he trails off, sliding a sideways glance at Demyx, who laughs a little.

"True. Oh, hey, I just remembered. I'm not working tomorrow or the day after that. So…."

At his words, Zexion shrugs a little, no sudden waves forming in his emotions. "I'll make sure not to come by tomorrow, then. Or if I do, it'll just be to give the nurses something to give to Sora to keep him occupied."

(Demyx grins at Zexion's nonchalant tone only because he can feel the biting sarcasm underneath it.)

"Oh, I should probably go get his games, shouldn't I?" Zexion checks his watch and stands, brushes himself off. "I'll be back in a bit." He waves and saunters down the hallway, the pool of weariness and drudgery pulling along his feet and dripping off to the sides before dissipating along the corner seams of the floors and walls.

Demyx hoists himself out of the chair and watches Zexion leave, feeling drawn to him, as though he needs to cling like that sorrow to Zexion's heels, only to be brushed off with a few simple words and hand gestures. But he wants to sink inside the pale man's skull, live in the ocean's wealth of emotions secreted there behind cobalt eyes and let it carry him, buoyant and comfortable, for the rest of his life. It's a yearning that pulls at him, thrums through his bones and skin in the rhythm of his heartbeat. But he doesn't move. Just stands there, craving.

Down the hallway, Zexion pauses and half turns around, gaze steady. "Hey, Demyx?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

And he turns back around in a smooth movement with no further elaboration, walking at a measured and relaxed pace. The soft taps of his feet hitting the floor slowly fade to leave Demyx alone in the hallway, staring after him and just letting the rush of gratitude lap around him.

 _Strange,_ Demyx thinks to himself.

(He's not even sure what he's referring to. But his headache is gone, and he can breathe easy once more.)

Demyx has no explanations. He only shrugs, grateful, and starts his rounds again, entering the rooms with a soft and friendly smile on his face, routine questions ready at his lips.


	4. This Ain't a Love Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Pounding, rushing, vibrating to his core and all he hears is the sound of distant earthquakes as he covers his ears with his hands, fingers pressing hard and heavy against the back of his skull._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains something that could be triggery for some people. Implied Dub!Con is in this chapter, and I think that part of the description can come a little too close to drug use, because Demyx is sorta a junkie on his own thing, okay? Also, minor character death. Read with Caution, but let me know if something in here is too much and I’ll try and edit around it, okay?

"-and then, with a HUGE ROAR," Demyx raises his arms and starts stomping about the room, gnashing his teeth exaggeratedly to the delight of his captive audience, "the monster swoops up and GRABS the princess!"

Sora gasps in terror, eyes wide, fists clenching hard in the bed sheets. "Is she okay?" he asks earnestly, mouth hanging open.

Demyx waves a finger at him, blinking his way through the thrumming excitement beating bruises into his skin. "Now, now, Sora. Wait until I'm done. I'll get there, I promise."

A soft scoff comes from the doorway, and Demyx lets out an almost embarrassing whimper as wonderful, beautifully smooth amusement runs against his mind, wrapping around to guard it gently from Sora's rampant enthusiasm. Zexion is leaning in the doorframe, eyes sardonic as he murmurs, "Oh please. Sora? Patience? Are we talking about the same child?"

Sora pouts and frowns and generally whines his way into getting Zexion to admit that no, he's really not quite that bad, and all during that time Demyx drinks up the sight and feel of Zexion like a water-starved sunflower turning its face to the sun.

For the sixth day in a row, Demyx has woken up with no headache and with his stomach growling and grumbling at him. For six days, he has stumbled through his morning routine, making breakfast and getting ready for a run, and this is the (he checked the calendar blearily that morning, spoon hovering halfway between his mouth and his food) third day since the last time he threw up. His milk is finally starting to go bad, and the dishes in his sink are being cleaned slowly, day by day. For six days, he has clattered down the stairs, steps uncoordinated and shaky from mere physical tiredness for once with no underlying mental exhaustion. _Six entire days_ , and Demyx stares straight at Zexion, knowing full well that this is the reason why.

A quirk of curiosity plucks against his fingers, and he can see Zexion raising an eyebrow.

He shakes himself, grin sliding back onto his lips like it has never left. As pleasant as getting lost inside Zexion's emotions is (he swiftly curbs the swamp of _want_ he feels just thinking about it), Demyx really can't afford the distraction. "Sorry, where was I?"

"The monster just STOLE the Princess!" Sora throws up his arms in grand gestures that are probably meant to describe either the story or his frustration with Demyx forgetting where they were in said story. The young boy pauses to cough hoarsely, hacking barks that bend his body over itself, and immediately, Zexion is there, one hand running up and down Sora's back, worry creasing his brow and winding itself in the cracks of Demyx's psyche. Eventually, Sora rasps out, "And the hero was about to go save her, right?"

"Right. Now see, the hero-"

"Demyx, what is that? Are you okay?"

 _Concern._

Demyx blinks at Zexion a little, inwardly delighted at the curls and waves of concern and worry butting against his hands like curious cats even if he doesn't know why. "What is what?"

With a sigh, the slate-haired man reaches out and pushes one sleeve of Demyx's scrubs up, exposing the – oh man was that bruise turning _yellow?_ – scrapes and contusions on his arm. "What in the world is this?" (Demyx braces himself for every bit of skin contact now and isn't whisked away to the inner channels of Zexion's mind when Zexion gently runs his fingers up the scratched area, mapping the damage there with the warm pads of his fingertips.)

Still, he has to concentrate hard to reply nonchalantly, "Oh, this? It's nothing. I fell down a few days ago is all."

"Nothing?" Zexion snorts a little, crossing his arms as he eyes the fading bruises on Demyx's arm. "I think the sun is rising in your arm, Demyx."

Blinking, Sora reaches out and presses down surprisingly hard for a child as small as he is, curiosity sudden and loud like a detonation in his mind. "I don't get it. His arm's not on fire and they taught us in school that the sun was made of fire. I mean, if it _was_ the sun, then shouldn't it be fiery? And besides, bruises hurt."

"That _does_ hurt, Sora," Demyx winces, pulling his arm away gently.

"Oh. Sorry."

A beep calls from the hallway, and Demyx looks up, tilting his head. When the sounds don't stop for a few more seconds, he shakes his head and smiles ruefully at Sora and Zexion. "Sorry, looks like I have to go now." He overrides Sora's half-hearted complaints easily, wagging his finger at the small boy. "I've been spending time with you. Don't you think your brother gets some alone time with you too?"

Sora smiles irrepressibly up at both him and Zexion, chattering away as Demy exits the room. "Yeah, I guess. Come on, Zexy, how's Dad doing, oh, how's Griever, does he miss me, can I see him, how's _Riku-?"_

Demyx closes the door behind him. Zexion's laughter is still clearly audible and he wants to tangle himself deep within the emotions swelling behind him, so deep he can never leave. But the call tones haven't stopped, so he walks over to the nurse's station, checking which room is calling and hurrying over.

(It ends up being nothing serious, just an IV change and a bored little boy who can't figure out the hospital's television setup. He's grateful for the distraction anyway.)

Sora's door is still closed when he checks again, hovering around the hallways nervously, like a half-starved dog. Demyx shakes his head, irritated. He isn't that desperate. He _isn't_. He doesn't have to go and ruin Zexion's time alone with his brother for his own petty, selfish (desperate, _vital_ ) reasons. Instead, he determinedly hobbles back to the nurses' station, checking charts and paperwork when he reaches the counter.

"Nurse Fitz. You're limping."

Demyx winces slightly, razor sharp edges of concern flitting near him, grazing him. But they barely skim his surface, only glancing around him, and he turns around to face Lexaeus, a smile already firm on his face as he gestures at his arm. "Well, sir, I'm still feeling a little sore from falling down last week. But the bruises are healing nicely!"

"Hn." Lexaeus shifts minutely, his scrubs pulling at his frame. Fleeting pieces of unnamable emotion scatter in the air like mica flakes, thin, iridescent, insubstantial. Demyx shudders through it, closing his eyes to the small bombardment of reflective light, and suddenly there is a stale taste in his mouth that he has almost learned to live without. Running his tongue across the inside of his teeth, Demyx wrinkles his nose. Slowly, the mica settles and Lexaeus nods, some inner conclusion reached. "Make sure to take care of yourself."

Reopening his eyes, Demyx makes a vague, aborted gesture with his hands. "I'm trying, I'm just…"

Lexaeus immediately focuses on him (and it's like all of those flakes suddenly _sit up_ and shine light directly at him), intent and still. "Haven't been sleeping well?" he rumbles.

"Yeah." Demyx rubs distractedly at his face and he swears that he can feel the dark circles under his eyes with his fingers. He shrugs helplessly. "Not much can be done, though."

"That's no excuse for neglecting yourself."

The words are delivered in a carefully even voice, but it doesn't fool Demyx. He has hit a vein of metallic anger with a chisel, irritation ricocheting straight up his arms to settle inside his sternum. Rigid.

Demyx clenches his fists against the emotion even as it loosens his tongue enough to snap back, "Well, it's not like I choose to stay awake too long just so I can fall down the stairs!"

Lexaeus is about to say something when –panic, shit, panic floods him a moment before– alarms start blaring down the hallway. Hospital codes are snapped out in terse voices. Demyx is moving instinctively behind Lexaeus, following the large doctor with a bleary, jittery sort of consciousness, all of the other emotion dumping out of him to make room for this. He reaches out with his mind to touch –young girl, no more than five, scared, not breathing, world going spotty and distorted around her– the patient's mind.

And as he does, he knows that she's going to die.

(That's the part of his _gift_ that he hates most of all. This fatalistic simplicity of just _knowing_. At least others have the luxury of hope.)

He finds himself with tools under his hands, a smaller body under those, and there are other nurses and doctors with him who are working desperately, equipment beeping frantically around them. There's a flash of nigh-on debilitating fear and panic (the girl's eyes seek out his own, because in this instant she _knows_ , of course she knows) that he responds to by just reaching out to hold her hand and buoying her with something, _anything_ , letting her terror pass through him – paddles, they're pulling out the paddles, fuck that's not a good sign – and he goes so deep in her mind that he can _feel_ the girl's heartbeat stutter and try, painfully, to restart before just….

For a long, stunned moment, Demyx feels nothing.

And then it all comes crashing in. Screaming along his nerves like glass, sorrow and loss and _pain_ dig at him, cut him deep, bleed him dry in their savage all-encompassing whirlwind. He is open and vulnerable, pulling himself out of a psyche that doesn't even _exist_ anymore.

Parents. Of course.

Parents, and they know now that their daughter….

Their daughter is dead.

Demyx stumbles back from the bed, shaking, trembling hard and fast like hummingbird wings. Lexaeus – dark strong _tired_ weighty worried – says something, but the sound is swallowed up in the screeching that fills Demyx's ears. (hears it anyway, "Alright, call it," words he hates.) He gets a flare of acknowledgement from another nurse – tired heartbroken _shewassoyoung_ – and thank _god_ , Lexaeus was talking to someone else, so he turns and ducks out of the room, flinching away from the sobbing, crying, vortex of mess that is the parents of – Elena.

Her name had been Elena.

But that's not important.

Where is Zexion?

Zexion is…

Not in Sora's room, he realizes as he reaches the door, because the door is open and there is no siren-call that is the safety of Zexion's mind. Fuck. Fuck, why now? He needs the sweet protection of Zexion, and the man is nowhere to be found.

He runs.

Hallways flash past him, and he spreads himself over the entire hospital, searching desperately, so desperately for something that isn't there. Zexion isn't in the hospital anymore. There is no water to cool his mind, no smooth and wonderful barrier between him and the rest of the world and _everything is so **loud,**_ he can't _stand_ it. How the hell did he ever stand this? Sliding down to the floor in an abandoned section, Demyx rests his head against his knees and closes his eyes, trying desperately to keep everything, everyone, else out and as far away from him as possible.

Pounding, rushing, vibrating to his core and all he hears is the sound of distant earthquakes as he covers his ears with his hands, fingers pressing hard and heavy against the back of his skull. The sliding sparks of people's minds rush past, and he samples them briefly in his vain search for relief.

 _"-bored-"_

 _"shit these chairs are so uncomfortable-"_

 _A confused haze of nebulous emotion "Who…?"_

 _"-an, I hope Rude doesn't hurt me for this-"_

 _"Daddy…"_

 _So much noise so much noise, oh god-_

But that isn't them, is it? That… That one is him. (He can hear a high whining noise and it's not until he swallows that he notices it was him making it.) That was him. He was… something. Or no. No, he just. He _is._

 _"-ion… Ze-"_

 _"So young… God, why did she-" (he tears himself away from that one as fast as he can, panicked and gasping, scuttling back into the last mind he had.)_

 _"-exion… I wonder where Dad is… Zexion said he'd be here… And where's Demyx? I like Demyx, he's nice, brings me cookies, I'm hungry, where's Zexion…"_

 _  
**S.**   
_

_  
**O.**   
_

_  
**R.**   
_

_  
**A.**   
_

(The name is spelled out, but all he reads is 'refuge'.)

Demyx reaches out to brush his hands against the edges of Sora's mind, because there, in the forefront, is Zexion, smiling slightly at him, at Sora, at him-Sora, and it's the closest he's going to get to actually having Zexion there, no matter whether or not it _hurts_ because it does and he doesn't know how to make it stop. Sora is drifting to sleep, and Demyx almost desperately clings to the fading image of Zexion (and it's not the same as seeing him there, of course it's not because _Sora_ isn't an empath, so Sora doesn't know how Zexion _feels_.) But the world around him is pulling together as the small boy slips into slumber, gravity-bound and trembling. Slowly, he relaxes his hands, smoothing his fingers over the sore spots he leaves on his scalp.

But he does not look up. Every inch of him still hurts and he feels like he's been bleeding. He knows, though, that if he looks up, he will be pristine, clean, in scrubs and outwardly fine.

God, it's never been such an unconvincing outside.

He has no idea how long he sits there, mind whirling, tipping precariously between the dark between-space and the bright, harsh, _real_ rasp of everyone else around him. He only knows that eventually he takes a breath and he can feel it all the way through his body, sharp like the snow falling outside, ice crystals biting his lungs.

Demyx opens his eyes.

He stands up. Hands, shaking and jittery, smooth down his scrubs, tugging everything into the right place even if it was never wrong to begin with. Perfunctorily, he checks his badge and keys as he slowly starts the long walk back to his unit. Lexaeus will kill him if something is out of place.

The next hour is a blur of pain and focus because Demyx knows that if he lets go of his precarious hold on his own mind right then, he's going to go insane. Patients blur by, Demyx ignores the sobbing parents of the child – _Elena,_ his mind hisses, _Elena_ – when he passes them, and he goes through the motions of taking care of people like an automaton.

(He feels so exhausted by the end of it that changing into his t-shirt and a pair of jeans is a monumental task. But he manages, as always.)

He stumbles outside after he waves goodbye to Lexaeus and the cold wind bites into him. Hissing, Demyx draws his arms tight around himself. Fuck. His jacket is still inside. He glances back into the warm hospital but shudders away from the broiling mess of emotions the building holds. At least outside, even with the cold snow falling, is quieter than in there. Besides, he knows what he needs, and warmth isn't it.

Hands shaking, he drags his cell phone out of his pants pocket and dials Axel's number without thought.

"Demyx, what is it? What's wrong?" Axel answers immediately, worry lacing his voice.

"Hey, uh, Axel," Demyx rasps out, voice hoarse. He swallows, trying to soften the edges of his voice. "Can we go out to the bar tonight?"

Axel is silent for a long time, too long of a time, and Demyx closes his eyes fiercely to the onslaught of emotion that hurdles at him from the hospital's walls, the buzz of the static across the phone the only thing anchoring him to the world. Finally, Axel replies quietly. "Yeah. We can go. Let me bring the car over to yours, okay?"

Gratefully, Demyx nods, swallowing hard, nausea rising in waves. "Actually, I'm at work still. I just got off. Pick me up here?"

"…Sure. Be there in ten minutes." And the line goes dead.

Demyx slumps against a column, slowly sliding down, hissing as the rough texture of the stone catches his shirt and pulls it up and drags harshly against his skin. Once again, he loses himself for a bit, drifting almost aimlessly in the minds around him as his physical eyes watch the snow drift down. It's almost peaceful.

But eventually, Axel drives up. Eventually, Demyx notices how labored his breathing is, how hard he's shaking, and he _knows_ that it's not all from the cold. The sudden firestorm of Axel's worry does nothing to warm him up, and the lanky redhead doesn't bother getting out of the car to help Demyx in. The crawling, immolating burn of irritation/worry/anxiety/weariness blazes across him as he gets inside the car.

"Do you care where we go?" Axel asks, tone clipped.

Demyx closes his eyes, wondering if he should feel ashamed and only really feeling tired. "Not really."

Axel drives.

They reach a club within minutes, the ride there tense and silent, and Demyx stumbles out of the car. Loud, blaring, rambunctious emotion pounds out of the club, winding through all of the people there until they all feel it too.

This.

Demyx thinks this is the closest anyone else gets to knowing what he feels like. But he's beyond rationalizing it, striding across the pavement and into the bar with a quick nod at the bouncer, Axel trailing somewhere behind him. (They all know him, and he doesn't even have to nudge their emotions to get them to let him in without waiting.)

People.

Everywhere, there are people, pressing against him, hot and insistent, and fuck, he loves it. The tight control he had earlier just slips away from him. Floating between all these people is everything and nothing like the black space, because there he can't feel himself, and here he _feels, oh fuck he **feels.**_ People sliding along his sides, grinding against him.

Flares of interest spark briefly as he moves through the club unseeing, and he finds one that is more needy, more wanting, less romantic, because what he needs is to be _fucked._ (Where is he, again? He can't remember.)

But it doesn't matter.

He slides against the person interested in him, purrs out an invitation to dance, dragging him out to wrap himself around the other, hips swaying in time with the bass that has replaced his heartbeat. Interest and emotion and everything shocks into his skin every time he touches someone, laying more and more on his mind, but he just keeps dancing, keeps pressing filthy kisses into the other person's mouth, not caring that it hurts beyond all reason. (He is beyond all reason because reason wouldn't let him hurt like this.)

There is no thought, there is _no thought,_ and it's amazing and effortless but everything still hurts, laced with cyanide and acetone and _he loves it._

And then he blinks.

Finds himself in an alleyway, the guy he had –picked up, had he done that, fuck, his head hurts so much – come outside with standing right there in front of him, and for a brief, clear moment, Demyx is so disappointed in himself.

Why does he always expect this to end differently? It never does, but he always thinks (hopes) that maybe tonight _won't_ be the night where he ends up on his knees in a dirty alleyway, face pressed close to someone else's dick, unfamiliar hands buried in his hair and tugging him closer. He stalls briefly, nuzzling at the stranger's thighs, hands going to the sides of his hips, trying to sense what kind of mood the other is in. (The only thing he pick up is need and horniness. He's not surprised.)

"C'mon, Dem," (he starts slightly; had he told them his name? When did that happen?) the man coaxes, shifting his hips closer again.

It isn't that he really wants this, and he knows that even as he shifts on his knees and opens his mouth, haziness slipping back to the forefront of his mind. It is just that he wants _something_ to replace the aching in his head.

Something to distract him from the salt trails on his face.


	5. All Hurt and Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He coughs when he tries to speak, but swallows and tries again, voice still too harsh and raspy. "Over here, Axel."

Water.

Soft drips of water sound through his mind, calming and steady and just _there_ in a way he finds so, so soothing, makes him feel so very safe. He looks down and sighs, shivering, as the water flows around him, washing his hands, washing him. It's a strange feeling, all of this gunk and grime that he hadn't even known was there being washed from him, leaving his skin clean like it never touched him to begin with.

He floats for a while, long enough to know that the water is flowing heavier now, the drops more like rain. Opening his mouth and letting them slide in, he tastes tiredness and worry, and the faintest hint of relief under them. Someone has come home and he can rest a little more now because _surely Dad can take care of Sora while I'm at school. Thank god. I think Vexen was going to kill me if I had to beg off early again. He's been very understanding during_ – Sora lying on a hospital bed, small body wracked with coughs, listless and pale in the face of how mobile he used to be – _all of this, but lenient he is NOT. It's worth it because my thesis is getting some real progress done on it._ A sigh, flipping his hair out of his eyes, and _maybe if I work hard enough, I can convince him to let me have some time with my family during the week. Maybe Demyx-_

He shudders, shaking some of the water off, closing his mouth and sitting up because wait, isn't _he_ Demyx?  
 _  
-can let me in while my family's there too?_ There is some heated rush that Demyx doesn't have enough time to understand, one that's squashed without conscious thought, and then the water is fading around him again, slowly lowering him to land.

Lowering him into his own mind.

Demyx opens his eyes.

And almost immediately regrets it, squeezing them shut with a soft curse as light darts knives into his skull. Slowly, gingerly, he sits up, pavement rough against his palm. Shit, he hurts everywhere. Every inch of skin feels tender and bruised, but his mind at least is clear. After the haze that was the last half of yesterday, Demyx isn't sure he could take much more mind-numbing (not quite the right phrase. His mind was sensitive. Body-numbing fit better, really, because he doesn't remember feeling his fingertips since he left Elena's room) pain like he did then.

Looking around blearily, blinking every second he can, Demyx takes stock of where he is. Outside the bar? He thinks? It looks about right, dim, dark, a little sketchy, smelling a bit too much like trash, sweat, and sex for it to be anything else.

Demyx hears the crunch of gravel under someone's feet and turns his head that way, tensing up to protect himself if he needs to. But a warm wash of worry and exasperation flickers around him and he relaxes.

Axel.

"Demyx? You out here?"

He coughs when he tries to speak, but swallows and tries again, voice still too harsh and raspy. "Over here, Axel." (He doesn't bother getting up; it's useless to try.) He hears Axel walking over, relief replacing the worry and feeding the frustration, hopelessness the fuel beneath it, and Demyx just sighs, rubs his face, waits until Axel comes into sight before he does anything.

"Again, Demyx?"

Demyx looks up at Axel, salt crusted around his eyes and a foul taste in his mouth. "Sorry, Axel," he murmurs without any prompting, and he knows that Axel doesn't believe him at all from the radiating irritation and resignation he feels.

"You say that-" and the lean redhead bites off the rest of his words, looking to the side. It doesn't help. Demyx still knows what he was going to say. 'Every time.'

'Every time' this happens.

'Every time' I try to stop you from hurting yourself.

'Every time' you fuck up.

And 'every time', you do it again.

Demyx hangs his head, feeling tears well in his eyes. Fuck, he shouldn't be crying. He does this every time, this is nothing new. Why is it hurting now? Concern pokes against him, and he hears Axel's voice say "H-hey, Dem… You okay? I didn't…"

"I know, Axel, you didn't mean it." The blonde sighs roughly and he rubs his hand over his face, looking up at the redhead tiredly. "Doesn't stop it from being true. I do say it every time, and I never fucking change." He slams his fist into the ground next to him, wincing when the impact finally registers. Lifting up his hand, Demyx stares at it for a while, mind trying to form coherent thought.

"I hate this."

The whisper is harsh and gouging and Demyx looks up at Axel as the lean man slumps down to the ground next to him. Fury, barely contained and fiery, lashes against him. It is tempered by concern and helplessness; Demyx wonders at the cleansing burn of it. Axel had always hurt before, but now… now it just feels like fire, like the burn of his muscles after he runs, warm and loose and aching.

"I hate watching you do this to yourself, Demyx," Axel continues, looking at his hands as Demyx pulls himself out of his thoughts. "I can't…. It's like you don't even notice how bad you get. And you just … sleep with someone, and the next day, you're hung over, but fine. And I'm always able to think that maybe," and he laughs bleakly, bitterly, (and Demyx jerks guiltily, because he can feel the tears that Axel is holding back, and he wants to curl into his best friend's arms and cry himself into a soft oblivion), "maybe this time you'll get better. This time, you'll stop and realize that you're just hurting yourself. Only then, a month later, you start getting headaches and you look tired and irritable and we go to the club to unwind and you do it all over again."

And now Demyx does start crying, feeling the salt water slide down his cheeks in slick drops, his lips trembling hard, and Axel reaches over to wrap an arm around his shoulders. They share their sadness there like they share their breaths, foreheads resting against each other. The air is hot and wet between them, and Demyx turns to tucks his face in the crook of Axel's warm neck, breathing apologies like confessions between sobs.

"I'm sorry." (I'm scared.)

"I'm so sorry." (I can't do this alone.)

"…I'm sorry…"

(I'm too scared to tell you why.)

They sit like that in a communion of sorts for a while until Axel slowly pulls back, rubbing harshly at his eyes. He looks exhausted, and Demyx closes his eyes, the twisting guilt he feels swallowing him. Axel probably stayed the night at the bar just so he could look for him in the morning, so he could make sure that Demyx was okay.

Axel stands slowly, movements stiff, like every part of him hurts. Leaning back, he twists to the side, lets out a relieved groan when there are several satisfying pops from his back. "Ready for me to take you home?" the redhead asks with a rough voice, straightening.

"Yeah." Demyx swallows, feeling the burn of his throat as he does. "Yeah, I am."

Axel holds out his hand to help Demyx up and Demyx shies away from it, feeling a bit too raw to touch anyone at the moment. He leans against the wall instead, gingerly pushing himself up. For a moment, he lingers there. His breaths come in heavy. Labored. But the flare of Axel's hurt, beginning to sting around the edges, presses in around him and eventually, Demyx pushes himself away from the wall.

He follows Axel out of the alley, wincing at the bright sunlight. Blindly, Demyx tails after his friend to the car, praying that he doesn't step on a patch of ice as he does. (The bruises on his side ache tightly at the reminder, and he bites back a small groan.)

Squinting one eye open, Demyx manages to get to the car and he settles into the passenger seat with a grunt. He closes his eyes again, feeling Axel's weight shift the car before the redhead closes the door and starts the car with a quiet rev of the engines. The silence is heavy but comfortable for Demyx, even though he can tell that Axel has so many questions he wants to ask. He rests his head on the window, soaking up the weak warmth from the sun.

Unfortunately, that small measure of peace doesn't last long.

"...Why do you do it?" Axel asks quietly, like the words are torn out of him. "I don't... I don't get why you have to keep doing this."

Demyx listens to the squeeze and shift of Axel's hands tightening on the steering wheel and lets out a sigh. "I can't really explain it, Axel," he murmurs, shifting slightly without opening his eyes. "It's just something I need to do sometimes."

"Do you really?"

"Yeah."

"No, I mean, really, do you have to do it? Because I'm sure there are other ways to ... unwind." Demyx can feel the car turning and swaying through traffic, and he can feel the confusion and vague irritation pouring off of Axel, but he just can't muster up the effort to play nice right now.

He's just so tired.

"Look, Axel, can we... can we not talk about this?" Demyx asks, voice flat. "I really just want to go to sleep."

Silence.

Axel takes a deep breath, and the flare of anger and frustration batter hard against Demyx's meager defenses. They are restrained after a few irritated breaths but Demyx hunches into his window until they pass, swallowing hard because they still _hurt_ even if he was feeling smooth and protected. Fire singes him at every turn and he can't escape, can never escape.

"Alright."

And like that, the fire is gone.

Demyx cautiously lets out the breath he was holding.

Maybe the club worked after all?

(But this is nothing like the raw relaxation he feels normally, because normally it is like someone took steel wool to him and scoured off all the rust. This is different, and he's not exactly sure how different it is yet.)

The car stops.

Demyx opens his eyes, looking first at his apartment building, then at Axel. The building is grey and squat, nothing too exiting or good-looking, and Axel's face is hard, mouth bitten into a stern, repressed line, jaw tight with everything he's choosing not to say.

"...Axel...," he starts, but hesitates, unsure of what to say next.

Axel sighs roughly, rubs the twin reversed teardrop tattoos under his eyes with his thumb and forefinger of one hand. "Just... Demyx, I can't keep looking after you, you know that. I just want you to be safe, but there's only so long I can do this, because I can't keep watching you do this to yourself if you're not going to get any better."

Throat tight, Demyx nods, a heavy panic setting into his bones. Axel has been the only one for years who has given _any_ sort of damn about him. For him to give up now... "I'll try, Axel," he promises, and he means it. He does.

(But in the back of his mind, he knows that if his only options are the club and Axel's disappointment, or facing the raging whirlwind inside him again, he will always pick the club.)

"Sure, Demyx," Axel says. But he shakes his head and drags up a tired smile. "Just go rest. You have work tomorrow, right?"

Demyx grins weakly back and nods. "Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow for dinner, right?" He opens his door as he speaks, setting his feet tentatively out on the icy pavement. Axel shivers as the cold air hits his skin. (Demyx blinks at that, because he didn't even notice the air temperature.)

"Yes, I'll see you then, jeez, Demyx, you're letting in all the cold air! Shoo!" Axel waves him out of the car, grin widening.

Demyx gets out of the car fully and closes the door. He watches as Axel drives off, the tension bleeding out of his frame the further away the car gets. For a moment, he enjoys the relative silence. But he slowly staggers up the stairs to his apartment, leaning against the wall and railings for support. His legs tremble now that he can relax them, now that Axel's not here to mother-hen over him and worry and hurt him unknowingly.

Fuck, he hates himself when he's like this. It had been better, but now he needs rest and real sleep, because he _still_ doesn't feel as good as he normally does after a night like this. He didn't have to go all the way with anyone, so he shouldn't be feeling this weak and dejected and lonely.

(He woke up fine. He woke up surrounded by water.)

Demyx wonders if that means that Zexion was nearby. And if he was...

He could have seen Demyx.

The thought is nauseating, and Demyx sags heavily against his door, pawing absently at his pocket for his keys. Zexion should not have to see Demyx like that. To him, Demyx is like a hero, helping him see his brother when he otherwise couldn't.

(It matters to him, but he has no idea why the idea of Zexion seeing him, used and abused in a back alley near a bar, upsets him so much.)

Through sheer force of focus, he opens the door. Demyx slogs through the disorder on his floor without bothering to turn on a light, late afternoon sunlight drifting in through the slats on his window blinds. He is just intent on heading to his bedroom and getting some sleep immediately.

But his mind buzzes and whirls and he knows that he won't be able to get to sleep like this. Groaning, he turns to circle the living room agitatedly, unable to stop moving even though his body shakes and shivers with the need to drop.

Demyx wanders, paces around his mess of an apartment, nudging trash to the side with his shins and feet when he encounters them. He clears a track for himself and keeps walking around. Darkness presses in around him, and despite the relaxation he got at the club, he can feel the tension building up underneath his surface again.

"Fuck," he mutters, scrubbing furiously at his scalp, fingers catching and pulling knots in his hair. He storms towards his bed, fully intent on concentrating so hard he has to go to sleep. Sweeping the covers to the side, he flops onto the bed, draws the blanket over his shoulder, closes his eyes.

Waits.

The apartment creaks around him, the footsteps of people living around him echoing and shifting and moving the floor. His mind can't stop thinking, spinning widely out for things to worry about, like his job, like Axel, his only friend, how his family is even doing anymore since he hasn't seen them in, wow has it already been four years because it doesn't feel that long, no, can't sleep, wonder how Zexion's doing.

Demyx clenches his teeth. He hates this. He closes his eyes tightly, willing himself to slip into the grayscale of sleep.

Everything is just so _loud_. He can't just make it stop because his mind just won't _stop._

But between one breath and the next, he sleeps.

He dreams of pain.

He dreams of pain, he cannot wake up, he dreams of-

-rending, screeching pain, terrible and vast. Flashes of color, of noise, careen into him, landing and drilling through his skin with their razor points. Demyx twists to get away from it, but it's no use, it's everywhere, it's _in him_. The world is a roaring rush of noise and he hates it, god he is so scared of it because it never just leaves him alone the way he wants it to, just follows him incessantly.

But there, ahead, there is a safe spot. He darts towards it, instincts screaming "less noises that way go go go". A column of light. Ahead of him.

(The tearing pain is catching up, digging barbs into him, and he runs faster, terror making his breath catch.)

He knows not to look behind him, he knows because it's a place full of secrets of other people, and he wasn't meant to know them, he isn't _supposed_ to know any of it, it's not fair that he does know, so he keeps running, eyes fixed on his destination. A shape begins to form as he gets closer, light glinting off of soft petals that are opening to him, beckoning him in, and he, god, he doesn't stop moving, lungs heaving, unable to breathe until he is there in the midst of it, cradled in the center of a blue-petal lotus that hovers over murky, dangerous waters.

Demyx has nothing to fear here. The lotus will protect him. Already it is drawing its petals up to guard him from outside dangers. He sinks to the ground with legs that can no longer hold him, wraps his arms around his body, buries his head in his skin and shakes with fear and exhaustion. The smooth touch of the lotus flower brushes his back, his hip, his thigh, noncommittal and serene. Just letting him know that it's there, solid and reassuring.

Only…

It's not.

It's _there_ , but it's not.

Looking between his arms, Demyx tilts his head at the petals surrounding him. Something… isn't quite right. It's not _quite_ the right shape. There is something missing from what he's really supposed to be seeing here.

As though it can hear his revelation, the lotus flickers.

Panicking – he didn't mean for it to go _away_ , he was just trying to figure out what isn't right about it! – Demyx scrabbles for a handhold, the petals that were soothing and solid now half-transparent and fading. But a bare second later, they reform back into their flower shape, glowing blue, swirling restlessly, bright sigils taking place of their lines, holding him up even more gently than the petals of before. (He knows he has been here before and that he should try to remember where, but sleep is catching up to him even in the dream and Demyx is so _tired_ of fighting.)

He lets go.

And he is surrounded by-

-Water.


	6. Denying Won't Do It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Looks all clear," Demyx announces, the words buzzing his ears._

He wakes to sunlight in his eyes, blanket half-cast off his frame, hand hanging off the bed. His mind is aching and tender, but it is whole, the image of a lotus fading as the light grows. Sitting up, clutching his blanket to his chilled skin, Demyx blinks around the room. He tries to reconcile the throbbing of his thoughts with the relative calm surrounding him.

Work. He has work.

And a run to go on.

Limbs shaking slightly, he slowly levers himself from the bed. His clothes are sticking to his skin (god, he forgot to even _change_ after he got home) and Demyx decides to forgo his run in favor of taking a shower. He slowly makes his way along the wall to the bathroom, feeling weak the entire time. Somehow, he manages to stumble inside and strip off his clothes before stepping under the spray, hissing slightly as the slowly warming water hits him.

As the water pounds down on him (and his skin felt so grimey as his clothes were removed), he thinks hard about the lingering remants of his dream.

 _It started out as a nightmare,_ he remembers. He was scared, and everything hurt and there was never any escape. It isn't a new dream. He never excapes. Never gets free. But this time....

He was saved.

Water streams around him, warm and soothing, and he bows his head under the spray, rivulets running into his mouth and nostrils as he just focuses on breathing. Slowly, his muscles start to go loose, letting go of the imprints of concrete and sheets, back-alleys and his own bed. He leans against the slick tiles in front of him, eyes closed. Slowly, he reassembles what he remembers of the dream. The lotus. Made of sigils and glowing lines. A safe haven from fear and pain. (The lotus is still bright behind his eyes, and it's beautiful and now resonates _Zexion_.)

His own mental image of Zexion saved him from a nightmare.

 _What the hell,_ he thinks, tinges of disbelief waking around the corners of his bruised mind as he stands there. _I can handle myself. I don't need... saving or some shit like that. Doesn't matter how nice he feels. I've handled it for this long, I can keep going._

But still he remembers how safe he felt and how warm the lotus petals were around him, and he wants to go back. Cursing silently, Demyx shuts off the water and leaves the shower, movements sharp with irritation. He ignores the rumbling of his stomach in favor of heading to work once he's dressed, grabbing a coat only because he knows that he'll regret it later if he doesn't.

The air outside is bitingly cold, sharp pinpricks of sensation on his skin a drastic contrast to the relative warmth of his apartment. Demyx ducks his head into the collar of his jacket, hands tucked inside pockets, and he breathes heavily for a bit. His still-wet hair is probably frozen, he realizes, and he probably should turn around and call Axel for a ride but he keeps walking. Bright and sudden bursts of people, the hum of their ambient presence, flow around him, and Demyx hates them all at this moment. They don't have to deal with this. They're lucky, because empathy is _nothing_ like they expect, and no one would believe him at all anyway if he tried to tell them. They don't have to deal with this pain.

Pavement streams by him. He keeps his head down, glaring at the unoffending grey slabs because he doesn't want to _deal_ with people, and he has to work, and the bar was supposed to _help, why does he feel worse?_

Walking to the hospital only succeeds in tiring out his already exhausted body, and his mind is still buzzing hotly as he finally reaches the large building and walks inside. The rumbling and low-key buzz that constantly pervades the building is strangely reassuring in comparison to outside, because here, here he knows he can at least be useful. (Here, Axel doesn't have to look at him like he's everything disappointing in the world.)

He doesn't lean against the wall as he's waiting for an elevator this time, but it's a near thing, weariness pressing hard on him as the lights ding and the doors slide open. Demyx closes his eyes as the elevator takes him up to the children's ward. The world spins disorientingly around him. Little digs and flashes of people go by, and he leaves the elevator with a small sigh of relief.

Lexaeus only grunts at him when he picks up his shift clipboard and gestures at him to get a move on. He does so with alacrity, heading for the rooms to check on kids without a pause. Typical stuff. Changing IVs, checking pulse rates, doing followups and delivering food, and it keeps Demyx busy until after lunch, where his stomach rumbles again and he realizes that he hasn't eaten in too long again. He heads down to the cafeteria and stomachs their food (cafeterias are always terrible, worse in hospitals, worst at high schools, and really, the smell of pre-processed food shouldn't make him want to hide in a corner and pretend that he doesn't exist).

The walls blur again as he's heading back to work. Demyx knows that he's been putting it off, but...

But the last name on his checkboard is Sora's, and he can't keep avoiding a patient just because he doesn't want to see Zexion. (Doesn't want to see Zexion because what if he's wrong and he does need him, but he shouldn't, but what if he _does, what then.)_

He turns down the hallways without paying attention to where he's going, staring sightlessly at the floor as he attempts to turn off his mind. Dimly, he reaches out, stretching tired mental fingers towards the rooms as he passes them. There are the drugged slides of children, and there-. Demyx stops.

A now familiar stream of comforting emotion pools around him; Demyx looks up to meet Zexion's eyes and has to suffocate the panic and relief that he feels. Zexion shouldn't be able to affect him like this, he thinks, and all of him feels sick, shaky. His eyes dart to the floor

He can see Zexion tilt his head to the side and concern pools around him. "Demyx? Are you feeling well?"

"Yeah." But he feels like sitting down and not moving for a week or so. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. I was.... Um."

"Long day yesterday?"

Demyx nods. "Yeah. Rough long day."

Zexion snorts out a laugh that turns into a groan. Demyx looks up again in time to see Zexion rub his hand against his face, and for the first time, he notices how _tired_ Zexion looks, circles dark and heavy beneath his eyes. "There have been too many of those."

"Tell me about it." Demyx straightens from his slightly hunched posture with a hiss and nods at Sora's door. "Ready to go in?"

Without really waiting for the pale man's assent (he can feel Zexion's anticipation swirl around him), Demyx swings open the door, a smile already on his lips. Sora sits upright on the bed, color back in his cheeks, and he's eyeing the door like he can taste freedom.

"DEMYX!! Can I go home yet? I'm tired, and I wanna see Griever, and Riku, and Dad and _everyone else,_ please oh PLEASE can I go home?" Sora demands, pouting and wriggling as though it will get his tests done faster.

Demyx laughs as he walks over to start checking up on him. "Calm down, Sora! Let me check everying first!" He starts up the tests, poking and prodding Sora while the young boy prattles on about his day to Zexion. All the tests are coming up good, and he feels a hollow dread echo in him.

Sora is healthy again.

"Looks all clear," Demyx announces, the words buzzing his ears. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he keeps checking over Sora's charts and readings, selfish parts of him wanting them to change, because _Zexion won't stay anymore if Sora leaves._ "You can probably call your parents and have him get released today."

Relief washes over him from Zexion, and when Demyx turns to look at him, Zexion has his eyes closed. His shoulders are slumped slightly, all of the tension of the past two weeks drained. With a small sigh, Zexion shakes himself, straightens. The relief tightens back inside Zexion -and Demyx misses it with a sharp desperation (god, misses it so much, how is he going to survive without this for the rest of his life)- with barely a nod.

"I'll call them right now." And with that, Zexion slides out of the room, pulling his phone from his pocket as he does.

Demyx watches him leave. His body longs to follow Zexion, to press against him, twine their minds together, never let him go, but he resists, shaking his head and turning back to Sora, who is watching him with too serious eyes.

Sora twists his blanket between his fingers for a second before looking up at Demyx again. "Do you like him?"

"...What?" Demyx blinks, confused by the muddle of sadness and love bleeding from Sora.

"Zexy. Do you like him?"

Demyx sits down on the edge of the bed and strokes a hand through Sora's hair, tousling the soft spikes. "Well of course I do. Your brother's a great guy, isn't he?" he laughs softly, ignores the painful squeeze his chest gives because he does like Zexion, and Sora doesn't need to know that it's mostly because Zexion is so still for his hurting mind.

Sora nods seriously, mouth set in a moue of discontent. "I don't know if Zexy likes people. I like him and he likes me, but he doesn't like a lot of people. He doesn't like Riku, and I like Riku, and I want him to like you because I like you."

"Hey, maybe Zexion's just picky, you know?" Demyx sighs, stands again. "Don't worry about it, okay? Just go home and get better. Play with Riku again."

"OH YEAH! Riku! He'll be so mad! I beat Empire Souls last night!"

Demyx laughs and chats with Sora enthusiastically about his game until the door opens again and Zexion nods at Demyx. "They're on their way. Can I get started on the paperwork?"

"Yeah, of course. I'll go get that for you." He tries to suffocate the sinking feeling that is overtaking him as he leaves the room. Damn it, this morning he decided that he doesn't need Zexion! He decided that, and he's sticking to it - no matter how much his mind wishes he wouldn't. Demyx grabs the outpatient paperwork angrily, crinkling the paper enough that he has to pause and try to smooth it out.

He feels Lexaeus before he sees him. "Irritating family?" the large man grunts, working on his own charts at the main desk.

Demyx sighs slightly and shakes his head. "Not really. I'm just. Long day. I'm trying to not snap at them for something that's not their fault."

Lexaeus pins him with a glance, and Demyx shifts awkwardly under his concern. "You need to be sleeping better, Demyx. We can all spot the symptoms of exhaustion, and I'm fairly certain that most of the nurses have a betting pool for when you're going to collapse in the middle of a shift."

"...it's not interfering with my work yet," Demyx replies softly after a moment's thought. "I've been trying to sleep, but it doesn't always-" He stops when Lexaeus holds up a hand.

"I know. Just try, alright?"

Demyx nods, the papers finally straight enough for him to run away. God he hates people in times like this. They all think they know what's _best_ for him. What the fuck do _they_ know? _They_ aren't empaths. They have _no fucking clue_ what he goes through.

As he turns a corner, though, he realizes that he's being uncharitable. Of course they have no idea. He's the only one, and they will think he's crazy if he says anything. Demyx sighs as he opens the door to Sora's room again but he pastes on a smile and offers the paperwork to Zexion. "I'm just going to finish up a few things, like taking his IV out, okay?"

Zexion hums agreement, crossing his legs in the uncomfortable hospital chairs, eyes already darting through the papers.

Rolling his eyes, Demyx gets started on removing Sora from the equipment. Sora babbles eagerly about what he is going to do the _second_ he gets home, and his eyes dart from Demyx to Zexion to the door, obviously waiting for his parents to show up. It's barely a few minutes before-

"DADDY!"

Demyx turns around curiously, Sora practically vibrating on the bed beside him, feeling the reverberation of steel enter the room. The tall, stern faced man from Sora's mind just enters the room, smiles faintly at Sora and reaches out to brush Zexion reassuringly on the shoulder as he strides forward, reaching the bedside in only a few steps. His emotions are tightly reigned in, but they release a subtle hum of relief and joy.

"...See if we leave you alone again," the tall brunet murmurs quietly. Sora pouts, but it's lost almost immediately in the wake of his joy, shining like a sunburst in Demyx's periphery. The man turns to Demyx, silvery eyes flickering over his frame quickly. "You're Demyx, right?"

Demyx blinks, nods. "Y-Yeah, that's me."

"Thanks," the man says softly as he inclines his head towards Demyx, and...

...And that appears to be it, Sora's father turning back to the small child without any other words, just checking out the paperwork still left once Zexion passes it to him and quietly chiding Sora when he tries to get out of the bed.

There's a rustle of movement behind him, a swirl of amusement, and Demyx turns around as Zexion says, "Sorry, that's just... That's Dad for you. He's not much one for talking."

Demyx looks over at his shoulder and sighs. "I can tell."

Zexion laughs softly (and Demyx smiles in response, because the bubbling burst of happiness that Zexion really _feels_ is gorgeous and wonderful, and he just has to smile too). "I'm fairly certain that he meant 'thank you for all the help you gave my sons,' but I don't want to put words in his mouth."

"No, you got it pretty much right," comes another voice. Demyx starts because he hasn't felt anyone new show up, and yet here is a slight blonde man, and a ... well-endowed woman beside him. "Leon, here, gets all silent and broody when he's any kind of emotional other than frustrated."

The woman snorts, flips her hair out of her face. "Please, Cloud, he makes much more noise than that during other kinds of emotions."

"I said _frustration,_ Tifa." Cloud smiles wickedly. "I didn't specify which kind."

" _Cloud, be quiet,_ and that goes for you too, Tifa," Zexion hisses, face flushing at the same time that Demyx feels the crash of embarrassment. "That is far more information than I require."

Leon sighs from his position where he's trying to help Sora get dressed. "It's more information than he should be saying in front of a _kid, Cloud_. Can it already."

There's a loud whirlwind of laughter and clothes and paperwork, and before Demyx really knows what's going on, Zexion is the last one in the room besides him, and Sora's voice is already fading down the hallway.

Demyx rubs his arm awkwardly, looking at Zexion's shoulder rather than his face. Silence stretches between them. Demyx's mind is whirling, is trying to come up with something, anything to say, and he feels the uncertainty bleeding from Zexion too, underlined with a bit of regret. What is he supposed to do?

Finally, Zexion coughs. Demyx jerks his eyes up to look at him, meeting a cobalt stare. "Thank you, Demyx. For your assistance these past weeks. It meant a lot to Sora and me."

"I-It was nothing. Really." Demyx waves a hand, bites his lips. "I liked helping you. Besides, isn't that what I'm supposed to do? Help people? I _am_ a nurse!" He laughs nervously, fidgets, what is he supposed to do? Gratitude pushes against him in something like a friendly nudge, and he holds himself back from reaching out and grabbing it, river-smooth and wonderful, and he can stand people around Zexion, but not without him.

(Maybe he can't...)

"It wasn't nothing for us," Zexion says quietly, and Demyx's eyes flick back up to meet his again, skittish. "You helped... more than you can imagine." He offers his hand to shake. "Thank you."

Demyx looks between Zexion's face and his hand for a few moments before he reaches out, slides his palm into Zexion's, guards his mind slightly from entering Zexion's, but god, he loves just being this close to such smooth feelings. They rumble underneath Demyx's hand, and he can feel the shifting text-forms of Zexion's thoughts pressing against his skin, wanting to get it, to be heard. But all Demyx chooses to impart is a general sense of "You're welcome."

Zexion withdraws his hand.

"I'll... W-well, hopefully I won't see you again, right?" Demyx laughs nervously, rubs his hand discreetly behind his back. "I mean, I do, but I don't. Um."

With a small smile, Zexion nods. "Hopefully when we see each other, it won't be in the hospital."

"Yeah." Demyx swallows. "Yeah, that."

Zexion hesitates in the door, looking back at Demyx with a small furrow between his eyebrows. Demyx's heart pounds in his throat (and he wants Zexion to say it, say anything he likes, oh please, just let him stay), but... But Zexion only smiles slightly, nods, and leaves, footsteps echoing down the long hallway.

For a time, all is quiet. Demyx sags against the hospital bed, feeling the retreating waves of Zexion's emotions slowly disappate. He waits until the only noise is the soft background rumble the hospital is usually full of before he leaves the room, walking slowly to the window. He catches a glimpse of Leon and Cloud and Tifa as they get into their car, sees Sora being put into the back seat (and the kid already looks like he's about to fall asleep, despite his fidgeting).

Demyx looks out of the window, watching Zexion stride out into the cold, his long jacket billowing in the wind. A hollow, dreading sensation echoes within him. He wants to run outside, call Zexion back and keep him near always. (The last time he has been so well for so many days in a row had been _years_ ago, and he wants to know what it is about Zexion that makes him smooth and unhurting.)

(Because maybe he _can't_ do this on his own.)

Pressing his hands against the cold window, Demyx yearns. His fingers are leaving vapor outlines on the glass, and for a half second, he expects it to melt and let him through. When it doesn’t, he sighs, leaning harder into the window, towards Zexion. It feels like a line is cast from his mind, straining and stretching for Zexion. But the feeling is only mental, and the thread is formless, insubstantial, and Demyx never knows if it ever reaches him.

(But Zexion turns around and looks up at him, and that will have to be enough.)


	7. Baby, Baby, Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He wants to rend, to destroy, to eviscerate this world with his bare hands, wants to feel it give under his nails, that pinpoint of pressure just before the tear._

Standing in front of the window that views the parking lot, the blond nurse presses his fingers mutely to the glass once more, closing his eyes and seeing the pale flash of Zexion's face as the man looked back up at him. (A vague sense of unease builds in his stomach, but he remembers his resolution of earlier that he _doesn't need Zexion._ )

He doesn't.

And that resolution settles in his skin, in his blood, because he's survived this far, hasn't he? Hasn't he made it all this way on his own, no help whatsoever? The sun, breaking through the overcast clouds, shines in his eyes in a brief blaze of red glory; he closes them, bows his head slightly.

He doesn't need anybody. Not to hold his hand. Not to help him through this.

Demyx is fine on his own.

He has been for years, and nothing's changed now.

"Are you okay?"

Demyx jolts out of his internal reverie at the soft voice, fingers curling back in towards his palm, brushing cold and numbed against his skin. He turns, meets Aerith's concerned green eyes, and bites down the urge to sneer something rude back. With a sigh, he shrugs one shoulder awkwardly. "Headache, you know."

She studies him, a concerned frown curving her mouth. "You haven't looked too well recently, Demyx. Is everything alright?"

His anger flares (and he pretends to not notice how she sort of shifts backwards and shakes her head, like something harsh just buzzed in her ears), and his words are mocking as he says, "Oh, yeah, everything is just _fine_. My coworkers respect me and ask _me_ if there's anything wrong instead of just muttering behind my back about when I'm going to fucking _drop_."

Without waiting for any sort of response, because he feels twinge of shock tinged with guilt from Aerith and that's all the answer he needs, Demyx strides off, flexing his hands tightly.

 _"…what in the world has gotten into him?"_ he hears behind him. Demyx's fingers twitch. And he keeps walking.

He slides into one of the patient's rooms before Aerith can catch him (because of course she has to follow him, can't just leave him alone), smiling at the tiny redhead _–Kairi,_ he reads on the sheet– as he adjusts her IV. She smiles back up at him, shows him the little seashell sculptures she made, and he admires them appropriately, remarking on their beauty the way all kids her age want adults to do.

"D'you want one?" Kairi asks him, blue eyes large and earnest, and Demyx laughs.

Tapping on the largest one, a five-pointed star that has a face painted on one spire, he says, "Only if you make one like this for me. It looks lucky, and I need all the luck I can get."

"Sure!" And with that, she just buries her hand in a bucket of seashells that her parents must have brought her, pulls out shells in the most brilliant blues and purples that he's ever seen and sets to work as he finishes his tests. Kairi suffers him occupying one of her hands with the pulse monitor, but she still fidgets impatiently until she's fully mobile again.

The entire time, Demyx makes sure her fingers never touch his bare skin, makes sure the spines protruding through his skin never touch Kairi's soft, unformed psyche because right now, even he can admit that he's dangerous to her.

(She doesn't deserve his frustration.)

In little to no time, after many promises to come back later, he slides out of her room, down to Denzel's room, where he checks the boy for any discomfort from the strange bruises the boy forms so easily. He makes sure that he's comfortable, adjusts his lights for better reading. Time seems to jitter and jolt, at one point speeding by and at another point crawling until he can barely stand it. Demyx feels like the world has moved a few feet to the left without him noticing, and, fuck, that's just aggravating.

Denzel looks up at him while his IV is being changed out, hazel eyes serious and curious. "Are you okay?"

Demyx reflects on the irony of being called out by a kid and smiles weakly. "I'm fine, Denzel. Thank you for the worry thought, but let's just concentrate on getting you well first, okay?"

"I don't know if I'll ever be well again," Denzel murmurs as he always does, and Demyx, feeling the empty, listless ache of hopelessness radiate from the boy, closes his eyes, because he knows that feeling. God, does he know that feeling.

But still he smiles softly for Denzel, ruffles the kid's curls before he leaves just to see the answering smile it brings to his face.

The dread and jittery nerves have settled now, leaving behind a tired film that coats his actions with a slow, insidious poison, slowing his steps until he's barely shuffling back to the center of the ward. With a rough exhalation, he rubs his face. Demyx leans against the counter at the nurses' station wearily, his entire frame deflating until it's just his hip against the wood and his elbow braced on the counter top holding him up.

"Demyx?" Aerith again, her voice gone crisp and cold and still worried after his words earlier. "Are you okay?"

Demyx opens his mouth. And realizes that he doesn't really have an answer for her, the weight of everyone's thoughts and emotions dragging at his muscles, weighing him down.

He's just … tired.

He's so tired of fighting.

And the pain that never really seems to lessen wears on him more and more every day, and god, he just wants to be normal.

But still he turns to face her, and he can feel the falter in the upset thrum that resonates out from her when she sees him. "I'm fine," he says, voice soft and raspy. "I'm just… tired. I don't think I got enough sleep."

"We're all concerned about you, Demyx. It's okay to let us help you, if you need it." Aerith's eyes plead with him, large and green. And from the depths of his being, Demyx manages somehow to muster up a smile for her worry. It's nice that she pretends –and very well, too- that she cares. Almost sweet of her, really. "We're here for you."

"And you need to take a few days off anyway."

Demyx turns around to see Lexaeus shuffle out of his office with the half-steps of a person too large for the space they are in. The imposing man straightens up, fixing Demyx in place with steel-blue eyes.

Almost gently, he says, "You've been working a lot recently, and you've built up a fair amount of paid time off. Take it. Get some rest. We'll keep you on call in case we need you. But if you need rest, then you need to go _home._ "

Demyx wordlessly looks between Lexaeus and Aerith, blue and green staring him down. There's really nothing he can say to them. Already it's obvious that they won't listen to him, that they don't get that he just wants to be trusted to know what's best for him. (But his traitorous mind reminds him that the bar is being strange and that he's feeling a little raw right now and maybe some rest would do him good.)

_'I can take care of myself.'_

And maybe if he repeats it enough, Demyx thinks bitterly, he'll even start to believe it.

A massive hand claps down on his shoulder, drawing Demyx's attention up to Lexaeus' serene, concerned face. "Finish today and stay home for the rest of the week. We have people who can cover your shifts."

Demyx sighs, knowing that when Lexaeus speaks like that, like there's no thought of any other outcome, he is completely implacable. "Alright," he concedes grumpily. "I'll go home in an hour. I'll restart my work again on Monday."

Aerith smiles.

And that seems like that's it. Lexaeus nods and sidles back into his office, Aerith gets called to one of the rooms, and Demyx is left alone at the nurses' desk, ears filled with the ever-present white noise that pervades the hospital. Footsteps, air conditioners, the constant whine and beep of machinery, and Demyx stands through it all, adrift and helpless.

No work for a week.

He's not sure if the empty echoing he feels is excitement or just dread.

The decision had been made before he even entered the room, he tries to console himself. Nothing he did could have changed it. He can handle a week with nothing to do. A week with only his own mind for company.

( _He is going to go insane_ , but Demyx has to ignore that voice.)

Demyx pushes himself up, starts walking aimlessly down the hallways, fingertips brushing against the walls. The solid feeling is his only grounding point, the rest of the world swaying unevenly. Turns and twists and the scent of disinfectant and Demyx pays no heed to anything other than his own musings, just goes where it feels right.

It should really be no surprise that he ends up inside of Sora's deserted room.

Bits and pieces of Zexion linger in the plastic and metal furniture, pockets of residual calm that Demyx traces his fingers over. They catch and pull the sense-memory of Zexion in sticky tendrils that slowly, so slowly, sink into him. As the residue seeps into him, the queasy twisting in Demyx's stomach settles. Better. That's better. Now if only-

If only it was like this all of the time.

 _It_ should _be like this all of the time._

It's not _fair_ that it's not, that everyone else gets to feel so unburdened and so ignorant, but he, he has to suffer, has to _feel everyone else_ , wouldn't it just be easier if he didn't feel _at all_ , god, just _fuck this noise_ , this constant pressure and bombardment of emotions. He wants to rend, to destroy, to eviscerate this world with his bare hands, wants to feel it give under his nails, that pinpoint of pressure just before the tear.

But Zexion can make it better, he can, he has, so _why isn't he here_? Why isn't he here to make Demyx feel better, to take the pressure off, to soothe the static noise? Why isn't Zexion here right now so Demyx doesn't have to feel this? When Zexion's around, he can submerge himself in the stream of Zexion's emotions and drown in the safe bubble of water, the rest of the world seeming distant except for the glowing letter-lotus.

The inviolable, gently glowing letter-lotus.

There's a loud crash, and Demyx blinks, his body shuddering to a halt (Had he been moving? He must have been), and he stares at the tray table on the floor.

What…

What is he doing?

' _Destroying everything_ ', whispers one particularly nasty corner of his mind. ' _Just like always._ '

Demyx breathes out hard, puts the voice out of his head, his entire body feeling weak. Looking around at the minor destruction surrounding him, (trays on the floor, sheets thrown around, he's just glad nothing broke) he swallows. This isn't… This isn't who he is. He doesn't do this just because _one person_ has a life not centered around him. He's not this person.

And for the first time, he silently admits that maybe he _does_ need the time off.

He slides out the door after righting everything in a numb haze, grabs his jacket and heads home, barely bothering to let Lexaeus know he's leaving. The constant bite and slide ofpeople barely even rouses him, as caught up in his own thoughts as he is.

What was he doing?

What _was_ that?

That isn't him. Can't be. Demyx doesn't get upset because one person in the line of so many leaves him. Zexion doesn't matter. He doesn't. Demyx won't let him matter. There are other people who should matter more. His patients, Lexaeus, Axel, _Axel_ , his parents (who never call him, so maybe they shouldn't…)

Burying his face further into his scarf, Demyx sighs, the breath misting and floating off in front of him. Damn this. Damn Zexion and his calm mind. Damn Demyx and his inability to be normal. Damn-  
 _  
-Damn this weather, fuck too cold, not going to class toda-_

_-girl, leading her on only to find out oh she has a boyfriend, imagine tha-_

_-his boss, riding up everyone's ass, can't he just-  
_  
Demyx shakes his head again and again and again. No no. No. He's Demyx. He's walking home from his work at the hospital, he's not – _a student an angry hurt lesbian a corporate worker_ \- anyone other than 's Demyx. Just. Demyx. The slick ice and slurry on the sidewalks squelch under his feet as he hurries home in the fading light. His rickety staircase does its typical screeching and shaking, reverberations shaking up his legs.

(Later, he'll barely remember collapsing onto his bed and falling asleep.)

(But he does remember the countless dreams he has of water and drowning and Zexion's eyes and pain and when he wakes the next morning, his pillow and face are wet with tears.)

A few days later, he is roused by someone knocking on his door, the noise making Demyx's low-level headache flare. He shambles to the door, reaches out to open it, an anticipatory heat radiating from the other side. With a creak, the door opens, and Demyx looks up at Axel.

"Hey, Dem. I know you're off from work today, so I was thinking we could chill and relax." The redhead's mouth stretches into a large grin and his hands are tucked into his pockets, all easy self-assurance and barely contained snapping energy. "Weather's nice, so I was thinking a picnic?"

Demyx thinks about it for a second, thinks about the sunlight on his skin and the breeze that is nice and cool outside, and a bone-deep longing wells up in him. "Yes, god, that sounds fantastic, let's go."

Axel laughs. "Get dressed then, lazybones, c'mon, we've got a spot at the lake-park with our name on it!"

"Alright, alright, hold on for just a second!" Demyx says as he scrambles to pull on a pair of jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, grabbing a jacket only as an afterthought. "Is it going to be warm enough out there?"

"Snow's all melted or I wouldn't be going outside for so long. You know that."

Demyx nudges Axel playfully (and regrets it an instant later, the fierce burn of his friend's happiness just a little too much to handle at such close range) as he puts on his jacket anyway. "Don't blame me if you get too cold, Axel," he forces out through his smile.

"Eh, if it's too bad, I'll just pull the blanket up over my shoulders. C'mon, I got a proper setup going on in the car. Basket, blanket, food to eat, it's all there."

"Aw, Axel, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were taking me out on a date!"

Axel laughs, head thrown back to expose the long line of his throat, and he slings an arm across Demyx's shoulders. His feelings are warm against him, and Demyx tries the same thing he does with Zexion's skin, sliding a layer of … something between him and Axel's burning amusement. It tamps down the heat to bearable levels. "Come on, Dem," Axel's voice says, and Demyx has to snap his attention back onto Axel's face before the words make any sense, "Let's just go and enjoy ourselves, okay?"

"Y-Yeah," Demyx finally answers. Smiling, he drags Axel out of his apartment. "Let's just enjoy ourselves."

The drive there is peaceful, the teasing back-and-forth that Demyx thought they had lost coming easily now with the pane of invisible glass between them. Sunlight warms the windows and the skin on the topside of Demyx's arm, and the blond leans his head against the seatbelt, feeling the headache's pressure slide down his neck and relax its claws, abating for now. It feels great. Relaxing like this, in the way that he hasn't managed in too long.

Since high school, now that he really thinks about it. Strange.

There's the _crunch_ of the car grinding to a halt; Demyx rouses himself, opens the door to stumble into the sunlight. Grass and trees stretch out over the soft rolls of land, the buzz of cars, birds, and bugs filling the empty air. Lifting scents heavy with the smell of earth and growth, a breeze bends the grass, blowing Demyx's bangs back from his face.

Demyx breathes in the wind, feeling lighter than he has in the past few days, if he really wants to be honest with himself. He shakes off the clinging thought that Zexion has _anything_ to do with it and follows Axel onto the green lawn, spreading out the blanket.

And for a while, that's all that matters. Just them, chatting back and forth, the fresh, cold air somehow making the sandwiches taste infinitely better, the glint of the sun off the water's surface. Demyx has his face constantly raised into the breeze, breathing it all in as deep as his lungs will let him. Wet earth, water, sunlight. Like this, with his hands buried in the soil, it's not so difficult to imagine that this is all plants need to survive.

Cracking one eyelid open to view Axel, who is talking animatedly with his hands about something that happened at work, his happiness buzzing and popping cheerily away, Demyx thinks that he would rather stay like this than disappear back into the strain of his life.

"-And then BOOM, and Reno shrieks like a little girl about his hair and just, oh man, you should've been there. I think Rude even _smiled_."

"Your family is crazy, man." After a moment of shared laughter, Demyx waves his hand, eyes closed to the warm light. His mind drifts pleasantly in the afternoon sunlight. "I don't have any funny stories, really, other than so there's that thing with Johnny, right, where he totally likes that skank Josephine, but I'm so mu-"

"Demyx, who are you talking about?" Axel asks, a hint of laughter in his voice. "Something you read online earlier or something on the TV in the break room? I told you to stop watching those soap-operas. They're bad for you, man."

Ice water shocks down his spine, a chill of fraying panic and dread because that's not the voice he expected to hear, too swaying and laced with sardonicism. "I-. No, I just…" He what? He _what_? What was he just? _–but no, Johnny, god he was so fine, and Josephine was such a stupid little –_ What is he thinking? That doesn't- _seriously, Josephine, so pretty and so ugh, but such a bitch stealing her man-_

 _-her man-  
 **  
-her-**  
_  
Demyx swallows hard. He isn't her. He is… Demyx. Demyx is him. So who is she? _–Josephine doesn't deserve half the shit she gets (anger anger, rage frustration, a knotted selfish little ball)-_ But he isn't her. Which means…

Turning his head, slowly, Demyx looks over his shoulder, eyes implacably drawn to the two girls jogging down the path behind them, ponytails swaying and bouncing with the rhythm of their steps, and the bundle of emotions blaring, like music, like the unmistakable powder smell of makeup. And they are chatting breathlessly as they run, the name Josephine falling from their lips in tones of derision as they pass Axel and Demyx.  
 _  
Her._

 _Not him.  
_  
She had been him and he didn't…. He didn't even notice that his _own mind_ wasn't his own anymore.

Suddenly, the ground doesn't seem as stable as it did earlier. "Axel?" he asks shakily, and Axel's head snaps up immediately at the tone of his voice.

"Yeah, Demyx?"

"Can you please take me home? I-I… I'm not feeling too good."

Axel stands up, starts grabbing everything, packing it all with a quick efficiency, shooting him worried glances all the while. Shaking, Demyx just tries to get himself vertical again, the world buzzing and whirling around him as he slowly levers himself up. They make it back to the car somehow, Demyx waving off Axel's offers of help on the way. As Axel starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, Demyx closes his eyes and leans forward, seeking the stability of his own body.

For a long time, the only noises are Demyx's heavy breathing and the purring of the car engine. The world spins around Demyx, heaving from one side to the other like a ship caught in the waves, and the bright flare of worry and fretting from Axel doesn't make it settle. Slowly, he sits up again, letting out a heavy breath that doesn't ease the tightness in his chest.

There's a pause before Axel speaks. "Demyx, you know you can tell me if something's wrong."

And for the barest instant, Demyx considers it. Considers telling him 'Oh, no reason really, other than the fact that I can feel _everyone else's emotions_ ' and 'I can't even tell who I am anymore' and 'there's a guy who can make it all stop but I can't keep him'.

A deep surge of twisting panic surfaces because _no one would believe him_. What is he, crazy? No one would believe him. He knows. He knows that, but it is still such a nice idea, to think that maybe Axel will understand now, after all these years. But then again…

It is Axel's fault that he's never told anyone anyway, isn't it?

So Demyx bites his lip, shrugs slightly, avoids Axel's eyes as he murmurs some vague answer about work and not eating enough. He goes back to staring out the window, not focusing on anything in particular. The silence between them is heavy with all the things Axel wants to say, and Demyx just closes his eyes and tries to ignore the oppressive blanket of heat that is Axel's frustration.

' _Shut up shut up shut up,'_ he thinks desperately, swallowing his nausea, his shaking fear. ' _I know you care, but you are not helping.'_

"Whatever," he hears Axel mutter, and Demyx lets out a regretfully relieved sigh, keeping their tense silence until they get to his apartment.

As he slides out of the car, Demyx sees Axel lean over. "Hey."

Demyx looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and Axel sighs slightly, something tired in the slant of his eyes, in the rough curve of his mouth. The redhead's long fingers twitch and clench as Demyx watches him decide on what to say. "I just want to make sure you're okay, alright?"

"I know, Axel," Demyx replies softly, and even he doesn't recognize his voice anymore. "But I'm fine."  
 _  
I'm fine._

Axel stares at him for a moment longer before letting out a harsh breath and sitting up straight in the driver's seat. "Whatever, kid. Take care of yourself."

"You too." Demyx shuts the door on Axel's frustration and convoluted affection-pain and heads for his apartment, trudging up the icy stairs carefully. Once he reaches the top, keys cold in his hand, he turns around (and yep, there's Axel, idling on the street until Demyx raises his hand in goodbye).

At that, Axel drives away, and Demyx closes the door of the apartment behind him. Leaning against the door, he relaxes his muscles, shaking uncontrollably as he slides down to the floor. _Breathe,_ he thinks desperately, hands over his ears as though that can block out the noise. _Breathe. Must keep breathing. In, out. Simple movement, come on. Not too difficult._

The buzzing mess of people around him rises up, threatening to overwhelm him. He stands with jittery, uncertain movements and starts for the questionable safety of his room. The mess on the floor crowds his legs, though; the blond snarls, bends over, starts sorting things so he can fucking move, and once he starts, he can't bring himself to stop.

It's like the whole world is just _wrong_ right now, and he shakes and paces back and forth across the floor of his apartment, picking things up and rearranging them to get some sense of order within his space. His brain is wheeling, bits of thought flaring into coherency before falling back into the uneasy waters of his mind. __

_"-Zexion isn't here anymore-"_

_"-God, this place is such a mess, how could he-"_

_"-How could_ they? _Pretending that he's incompetent-"_

_"-Fuck everything, he should just go back to sleep-"_

_Just a deep sense of weariness and panic, pressing heavy on his mind and his heart, filling his lungs with useless, useless air._

_"-Useless like him, Christ, why does he even bother-"_

_"-ion, Zexion, Zexion, he doesn't need him-"_

_"-but god, the quiet was wonderful, the quiet was amazing-"_

Demyx cleans, the steady stream of thoughts bursting up past the calm these repetitive motions normally inspire. It just won't stop. His mind cannot _shut up,_ and it is infuriating! A movie is happening transparently in front of his eyes and there is no connection between what he does and the whirl of his thoughts. Dishes are cleaned, clothes thrown in piles for the washer, and eventually, he runs out of things to do, the whirl of his thoughts never once slowing as he stands there, looks around the apartment.

He is shaking.

He is shaking, standing in the middle of a cleaned, almost immaculate apartment, and he feels… like crying. Like tearing it all apart again. Like becoming the whirlwind that infests his mind.

Like screaming.

(Like finding peace by finding Zexion.)

But all he does is turn, go into his room, slide under his sheets, and shake silently until he finally, finally falls asleep.


	8. Like I Ain't Tried It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty-four years of pressure and six days of freedom is all it takes to drown him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT CAN BE CONSTRUED AS DRUG-USE TRIGGERING LANGUAGE. Please read with caution.

Awareness seeps into him miniscule sliver by miniscule sliver. Demyx cracks his eyes open slowly, lids heavy and crusted over with sleep and tears. The light of day is creeping through his open door instead of blaring through the window blinds; he must have slept into the evening. Sitting up, Demyx scrubs at his face blearily, trying to shake off the cottony feeling that clings so heavily to him.

His eyes stay closed as he swings his legs over the bed. Demyx curls in over himself, muscles lax and unresponsive in the late afternoon light. He should….

What  _should_  he do? Get up? Go back to sleep? Run? Eat? Go to- no no, no work for a while, and calling Axel might make his  _friend_  feel better, but … Demyx swallows roughly, tongue thick in his mouth, and even his breath aches as it rasps out. It wouldn't help him –yesterday is still too fresh in his mind, and he has no wish to end up in the mind of a teenaged girl again. He should wake up, really, the blond thinks as he rests his forehead on his legs, body gone limp.

_Not like it matters,_  he thinks bitterly.  _I have no real reason to wake up. No work to go to, and I can't even manage a simple fucking picnic with a friend._

But he shakes his head. That's not the point. The point is, he needs rest. He needs his head back on straight. The mind-fuckery, the loss of himself, that needs to stop. That can't happen during shift.

Steeling himself, Demyx slowly slides off the bed, gingerly lowering his weight onto his legs. He anticipates their buckling, staggering towards the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. The plaster is cool under his cheek, and Demyx takes the moment to attempt to ground himself in physical sensation, trying to mute the burgeoning storm of thoughts and feelings that is already threatening the horizon. He looks at the clock. It's only been five minutes since he woke up.

It never takes long.

He shuts down the part of his mind that murmurs, " _Zexion could silence it, it didn't hurt for_ six days _, and and and-"_

And nothing.

Zexion isn't his to order around, isn't some kind of bizarre good luck charm or some shit like that. He is a person. He is normal, and like all normal people, he shouldn't be subjected to the disjointed mess that is Demyx.

Besides, when it all boils down, it's not like Demyx hasn't survived twenty-four years without him. He  _doesn't_  need Zexion just to survive. (Demyx isn't convincing anyone, least of all himself, but mind over matter, mind over emotion, if he keeps saying it, it has to be true, it just  _has_  to.)

(Twenty-four years of pressure and six days of freedom is all it takes to drown him again.)

Demyx pushes off the wall, shuffling into the small living room. The sunlight shades everything in gold and orange, sepia toned and tired, long lines of dust motes drifting across the room. Demyx blinks at the clean floor, at the piles of organized chaos – books to go on his shelves, clothes to be washed, miscellaneous that just needs  _somewhere_ to go – and he barely remembers how it all happened. He must have been worse yesterday than he thought if he resorted to cleaning.

Even the dishes in the kitchen are clean, he notices as he stumbles in there. He rubs a finger against the white countertops and blinks uncomprehendingly at its newly unstained and cleaned surface. If he cleans this well when he's crazy, maybe he should let it happen more often. The thought causes him to bite back a bark of crazed laughter.

_Yes, because mental breakdowns always need to happen_ again _,_ he thinks hysterically.  _Hah. I'm such a riot._

And right after that, the amusement fades and Demyx takes a deep breath in. Out. An aching exhaustion settles in. For innumerable moments, Demyx stands there, tired down to the marrow of his bones, sunlight playing across his skin in glowing yellows and oranges, the low buzz of other people pressing in, in, in as it always does. He feels exposed and vulnerable, like anything could just tear into his soft underbelly at any given second, and he'd… be totally powerless to stop it.

Broken glass ground into an already lacerated psyche, why does he even bother sometimes? He could just give up; people have given up for less, no one would blame him.

But that thought fades away within moments as it always does. Demyx can't imagine life without pain, and death has always seemed so unattainable for him. He sighs, lungs heavy. With that, he turns to start clearing up the last bits of detritus left from last night. Socks over here, dirty laundry in the washer, broom to sweep up the bits and pieces of mud and dirt inevitably tracked in from outside.

The silence grates after a while, the ever-present low hum of people wearing heavily on his mind. But, oh hey, there it is; he crouches down next to the old radio nestled in the corner of the living room. Hm. Flipping the switch in the back turns the old, finicky thing on, luckily. He has to hit it a few times to get any sort of sound out of it, rock music flowing weakly from the speakers, but with a few more well-placed (rough and open-palmed, but hey, who's there to notice?) smacks, it sputters fully to life.

Humming along as chords power out, Demyx bops his head and shuffles around the apartment, hips swaying, tossing things to one room or the next. The apartment is slowly but surely pulling itself into a state of cleanliness once again, and he's pleased because really, this is the first time in … Too long. Far too long.

And dancing along is just fun.

He grins as a familiar riff blares through the room. Demyx air-guitars along to the song, belting the lyrics at the top of his lungs and suddenly-

Suddenly, the music isn't quite loud enough. He tries to keep tidying up, but he's restless, he wants silence, movement, he wants, he wants, he doesn't know what he wants. The air is harsh in his lungs, recycled and dry, and his chest is heaving with the effort of breathing. People burst at the edge of his awareness as he stumbles to the wall –a constant grind, like sandpaper and gravel, and god, he just wants it to  _stop._

_Stop, already!_

But of course, that's never going to happen. Demyx sighs and thumps his forehead against the wall, eyes unfocused. People are always around, and he can't  _stand_  them unless he's in the club, and even then…. Focusing his gaze, Demyx hums, thinks about it again.

The club. He could… he could always try the club. The overload-rewiring of his brain has worked in the past when he gets this bad, no reason it shouldn't work now, right? Right?

Right.

_If he keeps saying it, it has to be true, the more he says it, the more real it becomes, if he keeps saying it, it has to be true_  and that mantra is nearer and dearer than his own heartbeat as Demyx slides off his clothes to change into ones that will draw the attention that he needs.

_Please let this work._

Denim slides over his hips, tight and clingy in all the right ways. Demyx shivers, anticipation already laying a heavy fog over his thoughts as he picks through his shirts, eventually settling on one that has rips across the front. (Battle gear, his mind whispers, the only protection he's going to get between him, and even it is meant to be removed.)

(Some warrior.)

Demyx checks himself in the mirror, hands sliding down his sides. ID on him, no money to be found, phone stashed safely on his bed. Just the right amount of skin showing. All set.

If he has to take a deep breath before he leaves the apartment, that's no one's business but his. Just like how the last time didn't work. No one else needs to know. His hands tremble as he locks the door behind him and Demyx bites back a growl, focusing hard on stilling them. Fear. He doesn't need it. The slide and grind of everyone on a daily basis is enough on its own. Waking up to that every day is worse than anything that could ever happen to him otherwise.

He takes a deep breath. In. Out. Demyx can do this. He needs this.  _He needs this._

Too late to be scared now.

And with that, the skittering, jumpy feeling beneath his skin settles into the sick swirl of  _want_. Demyx turns around and hurries down the stairs, and god, it feels like his limbs are nigh on disconnected from the rest of him. He hits the pavement at a brisk walk, trained on the club to the exclusion of everything else.

The walk to the club passes slowly, energy riding high in Demyx's skin, his breath jittering with anticipation. Heart pounding hard in his throat, he can't wait for the immersion of sound and movement and the sweet, sweet relief of someone else's problems instead of his own, of someone else's mind. Demyx lets out an inpatient whine and jogs forward a few steps in an awkward half-skip. This walk never seemed to be this long before….

_Please, just … please let this work._

The familiar line and overhang come into view. With a grin stretching across his face, Demyx hurries forward, for once welcoming the tear and violation of the waiting people, the more distant ache of those in the club. As usual, he barely has to expend any effort to get through the bouncers, a smile here, a touch there, a slight compulsion somewhere else, and he's in.

The club sinks into his skin like stars, sudden bright bursts of feeling and thought and hot air. Demyx closes his eyes to it, inhaling it deep into his lungs, drawing it inside himself as much as possible. Fuck yes.

Fucking yes.

Demyx exhales in a shudder, moving forward with a rolling gait, hips and body gone loose. Now that he's here, he just needs someone to pull. (There are at least three, no, four, sparks of interest that he can sense as he slides onto the dance floor, squirms his way into a bump-and-grind with at least one of them.) Acid drips down his neck, and he shivers from the pain, welcomes it with a gasp that the person behind him takes as an invitation to add his teeth to the already aching skin below his mouth.

The bright spark of contact sends knives through Demyx's body –  _gorgeous, this one, smells amazing, want want want, hurts so much._  The blond swallows back his automatic urge to vomit. First spike is always the worst, and if he can push past it... if he can, it gets amazing, nails and teeth and pleasure and fuck all the pain.

Sliding his hands backwards, Demyx flexes his fingers against the man's hips, tilts his head to the side, breath shuddering out of his lungs.

Ah, there it is, there it  _is_ , and Demyx rubs himself like a cat against the man, a smile curling his lips and manic laughter that is drowning in the music throbbing through the club.  _Perfect_ , and he delights in it, in the noise and the revelry and –

- _ **please**_ _let it-_

-it's gone.

Whatever drive he had to continue grinding against this guy's thigh is now completely dissipated, the build-up that leads to the discharge vanishing like it was never there, and Demyx bares his lips in something that can't even be called an apologetic smile. No, not again. He refuses to let it happen  _again_. That's… That's bullshit, he needs this, damn it, he should be able to get it without having  _him_ around to….

No, whatever, he just needs another. Demyx smiles enigmatically at the stranger in goodbye and slides away, trying to build up the charge again. Another person would do just as well. Has to do as well. Anyone.

(Anyone other than-

-but no, he wrenches his traitorous mind away from there, seeks a new target.)

The smell of liquor is on his lips the next time he actively registers what he's doing. One leg wrapped around another person's waist, rolling in one long, smooth line against them, promises, pleads, aimless begging pouring from his lips without an end, and Demyx twists his fingers into their hair, mouths along their neck for anything, _anything._

It just keeps slipping away from him though, like oil running through his fingers, the slick residue doing nothing to quench his need. A low stream of curses ties into the music. Demyx shifts, pulling his body from the stranger's grasp, smiling enigmatically in their direction as he melds back into the mass of people.

Sliding back through the writhing centrifuge of bodies, he turns his head from side to side, eyes unfocused. There, maybe? She seems – no, already fading out, perhaps this one over here, desperate, desperation is good, but that one flickers out before he gets there.

Someone behind him leans into him, pressing their body along his, an uncomfortable stab of glass and Demyx yanks away, covers his mouth as he hurries to the bathroom because  _he can't stand this anymore_.

It takes everything in his power to not throw up before he exits the crowd; things that had been bearable before are closing in on him now, claustrophobia and anxiety thrumming in his skin. Free of the crush of people, he stumbles into the less-packed area, going on instinct – _ha, instinct, that's good, more like habit, only you're used to bringing someone else with you-_ towards the bathrooms. The people inside clear out when they see his bloodshot eyes, his shambling steps. (A few leer, but he only notices them as a greasy slide-by as he hurries into the nearest stall, choking back the bile.)

Shakily, he kneels, presses his face to the cool porcelain.

Fuck he hates this.

Hates it.

Rowdy laughter filters in past the echo of his breathing as people barge into the bathroom, loud and raucous and they drunkenly stumble into the sinks, gossiping loudly about some girl at the bar, some boy on the floor, and it takes minutes for Demyx to realize that he's unconsciously mouthing their sentences, wheezing out their laughter, their smiles cracking the skin of his mouth. He swallows hard.

- _fucking hell, that girl, curves like (wordless), and then there's the… the fuck, what was he-_

_-yeah yeah, girls, whatever, that guy… that guy, blue eyes, hips that could move like a god, want him want him, but no, no, too dangerous-_

_-need more to drink-_

_-ugh, smells like piss in here-_

_-need more (and he shies away from this one, because the desperation is already too familiar)-_

And this time he does vomit, knees down in the bathroom stall when he just wanted to get his head fucked on straight again. Utter bullshit, he thinks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. As he recovers – to the echoes of "Sick, man!" and other self-righteous bullshit (They don't know, can never know)-, the group of asshats filters out of the bathroom, leaving him alone once more. He stands cautiously, wavering on his feet. The nervous, jittery energy still hasn't left him as he exits the stall, and neither has the massive load on his shoulders, and he feels like he can almost see it as he looks into the mirror. Desperate aqua eyes stare back, bloodshot and bright in his pale face.

Demyx licks his lips, grimaces, washes his mouth out. The club resonates with a frenetic sort of energy on the other side of the door and, with a sick sort of twist in his stomach, Demyx realizes… he doesn't really want to go back out there, but his only way out is through the crowd. It's not worth his time to stay here any longer. He's not getting anything out of it. Only more and more wound up, really.

He refuses to let himself think of the lotus. Refuses. It doesn't work, but he refuses anyway on principle. It can't help him now. There is no blue lotus to save him from the tearing depths of razor tipped emotions. Forcing himself to stand and walk out of the bathroom is one of the hardest things he's ever had to do, but…

He has to.

He has to, and he has to remember that ( _he has to do so many things_ ) like he has to remember so many other things.

Sound assaults him like a hammer to the eyes, slams into his softest parts as he steps through the threshold. Gritting his teeth, Demyx forces his way forward, straightest path possible. Law of triangles and life, straightest path is… the shortest one, right? Right. Somewhere in the planning process, he managed to forget the fact that the straightest path is also the most densely populated, and Demyx finds himself rubbing against people again, moving his body, cat-like, through the spaces between theirs.

Someone grabs him by the elbow, and he wrenches away without a second thought, blindly striking out, because that hurt, that poisonous spike of lust  _hurt_ , and he doesn't have to  _deal_  with this bullshit. There's some wordless growl before pain, real, physical pain, blossoms across his face and Demyx is knocked to the floor.

He stares vacantly at the clear area of dance floor, suddenly open in the wake of violence, hand cupped to his cheek, and his mind is hissing white noise.

_Tender,_  Demyx thinks, poking the swelling skin almost curiously. He can't remember the last time he was hit.  _When was the last time…?_  After a second, sound boils up through his lungs, twisting through his esophagus and he lets out the burst of laughter, ears ringing.

God, he's going insane and he's just sitting on the floor trying to remember when he last got hit. Slowly standing, hands on his knees, Demyx eyes the crowd that has formed a ring around him. Nervousness spikes in the air surrounding them, and Demyx welcomes and pulls it inside him, because they  _should_  be scared. They have no fucking clue what the hell he can do to them. How he can twist them and slide through their stupid, open, blaring little minds to blow them out like so many overloaded speakers. They should be scared.

After all,  _he's_  scared.

He spits the envy for these people and their normal lives out onto the ground and lets it eat through the dance floor, a bloody glob of vitriolic hatred. The circle shudders and widens. When he takes a step forward, it melts away to let him through, wordless fear pressing in to fill the sudden void.

Shaking with laughter, Demyx staggers past them, listing back and forth as he makes his way to the door. The entire club has gone silent in his wake, even the constant bumping of the beat fading to nothing. It would be eerie, but Demyx isn't hearing the physical noise. The shouting and screaming and acid boiling has only gotten louder.

- _holy shit what's this guy's problem-_

_-why doesn't anyone stop him-_

_-where's he-_

_-where'd he come from-_

_Fear fear confusion drunken laughter –aw sick man what the hell is this-_

But no one steps forward to stop him. Everyone just clears a path to let him through, a wide berth of empty space spanned only by the amorphous fires of emotion and thought. As he approaches the exit, sound begins to pick back up again, slow rumbles in the far corners. The bouncers open the doors for him from the outside, wordless. He ignores their staring eyes, the sudden silence from the people in the line who were only moments before laughing and joking and complaining.

The blond nurse stumbles past them, concentrating hard on the pavement, shaking so heavily he can't even see straight, think straight,  _move damn you._ They don't matter. They've never mattered, waiting in line like that's all it takes to get through life.

It's almost no surprise when it starts raining. He raises his face to the clouds, wanting to pull them down around him, thunder out this insanity that is obscuring his every day. Wanting to sleep amongst them and drain with them.

Loosing himself in the earth, in the cracks between the concrete slabs.

The idea is almost enough to halt his steps. But, as always, that insidious little thought whites out and he's left standing, face-up in the rain. With a sigh, Demyx continues walking, bowing into the wind, mind a jumbled mess.

Walking home takes almost no time whatsoever- soaked as he is, cold as he is, lost as he is, demented as he is- even with the sickening upheaval of people and Demyx unlocks the door with shaking hands, the key skittering wildly around the lock before finally sliding home, opening onto…

His empty, cold, dark apartment.

He doesn't know what he expects when the door opens, but whatever it is, he's not getting it.

No wait... –he tilts his head to the side. That's a lie. Demyx knows what he wanted. He wanted calm, like a river stone, immobile and settled and smooth.

He wanted Zexion.

Zexion, there, in his apartment, with all the solace he and that thrice be-damned lotus have to offer, all quiet placidity and warmth, and fuck him, fuck him fuck him. He doesn't need any fucking help. Twenty-four years, and he's made it so far.

He's….

As he leans against the wall, his chest caves with despair, sucking the air from his lungs. He lets out a sob, deep and wrenching and fuck this, fuck him, fuck everything,  _this was supposed to_ _ **work**_ _damn it_. This was supposed to  _erase_  the need for Zexion not…. Not make it worse. Demyx gnaws oh his lower lip, the taste of copper and iron flooding his mouth; he swallows, spits, shakes and paces as barbed wire and acid burn him, scar him. He almost welcomes the pain. More of it now can't hurt, can it? A bloody laugh bubbles up, because fuck, now that he's thought it, it _is_  going to get worse. It's only ever going to get worse. (He feels like a chasm is opening up under him and he's standing wild-eyed on the brink of it, listening to the faintest echo of a phonograph in the darkness.)

He's too scared to keep going.

But there's… really nowhere else to go.

_I just wanted this to work._

_**Please.** _

_**ZEXION.** _

He falls onto his bed, hitches the blankets up over his shoulders, over his head. Breathes in; out. The shaking comes slowly, creeping over him until he is a quaking ball heaving out heavy, wet breaths. And then he waits, sobbing quietly into the damp, warm air in front of his mouth. Noise ratchets up in increments. Someone's dialing up the volume on the universe until everything is just screaming, vast noise, endless yelling and screaming, and he's standing at the center of it all, everyone's voices focused straight on him.

Demyx wants to scream with them, at them, anything to just get them to shut up, but instead he just bites his lips bloody, grinds his teeth together until he can feel the ache in the rest of his bones. This is unbearable. Twenty-four years, how has he done this for twenty-four years (though even in his haze, he has to admit that it's almost never this bad, not this fast, god what's happening to him?)

The world is unending agony, and Demyx lays there for uncountable hours, focused only on enduring.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he must have because when he opens his eyes again, he's back out in the rain, and everything is dark around him. Flashes of light come from the streetlights and passing cars. There are bricks under his hands, rough, solid, and his palms are supporting him, holding him in place. He breathes in and out and in again, bowing his head slightly, and he starts in surprise when he encounters something.

Warmth against his mouth. Neck, ears, cheeks under his tongue and lips- aha, someone else is here, - _solid and calm, confusion but it's almost a gentle eddy-_  and it really shouldn't surprise him that his imagination has called  _him_  up with the same startling clarity it had with the lotus. But hey, it's his dream right? Might as well get what he wants now.  _Anything_ to end the pain.

No repercussions for a dream, after all.

And Demyx is muttering a constant desperate stream of "fuck me, fuck me, please, just fuck me" as his hands slide up and down this person's sides, as he rubs himself against them, flickering smoke dark in the corners of his mind.

"Demyx, what-" a chocked gasp from a pale throat (familiar voice, familiar voice) as he rolls his hips, haze clinging to every form he sees. Demyx can't focus, shadows drip from everything, and he cannot  _see_.

"You aren't even looking at me! Demyx!"

Light flashes across his mind, painful and jagged and edged in salt, and there is no escape, never any escape, and it hurts,  _what did he do to deserve any of this, what did he_ -

-until a smooth wash of water covers him, soothing the burning in his mind, hides all the jagged and sore edges. Dizzy with relief, Demyx swings his head down, locks eyes with worried cobalt ones. The person's mouth moves, repeating some unheard refrain, but Demyx's gaze doesn't waver. He knows those eyes. There is respite to be had there. He knows that. He feels himself reach for the lotus they conceal, those shining, familiar eyes.

And drowns in them.

And consumes the mind they hide.  
  
* * * 

Demyx wakes up to sunlight streaming across his face. The world has a strange sort of crystalline clarity, and he rubs his face, trying to remember the day before. His fingers tap against his forehead. Waking up, cleaning, club… but anything after that is all pain. Hell, the entire day is coated in pain and haziness.

Pain and haziness that are now gone.

Gone as though they had never been there and the people surrounding him seem so much quieter today, he realizes, the insight sending a sudden panicky twist through his stomach. That… that  _doesn't happen_. Not without sex, or a day sitting alone, screaming it all out while it burns through him.

He stares at his hands, lowering them slowly to his lap. " _Oh no,"_ he thinks, feeling sick.  _"What have I done?"_

Closing his eyes, Demyx takes a deep breath. In. Out. What does he remember?

Warmth, light. The comfort of a river-smooth stone, and water rushing over his wounds. The entire length and span of Zexion's life pouring through him, the sigil lotus being torn open to soothe his aching psyche, and Zexion's eyes, wide and uncomprehending and  _terrified_. Demyx swallows heavily.

"What have I done?" he whispers.

The silence around him does not answer, and the first slide-drop of tears seems so loud in the emptiness.

" _What have I done?"_

* * *


	9. Crop Circles in the Carpet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world keeps on its slow revolutions as Demyx presses the heels of his hands roughly into his eyes.

Demyx sits there for a long time, face in his hands as he tries to think of exactly, _exactly_ what he got up to last night. Tears slide across his hands, making his palms slippery and slick, and he convulses as a sob tears its way out of him. The world keeps on its slow revolutions as Demyx presses the heels of his hands roughly into his eyes. Fuck. A hoarse choking noise clogs up his throat.

God, what the fuck did he _do?_

The club, the frustration, and somehow he left his apartment last night, found Zexion… Demyx's hands on Zexion's face, his thoughts and emotions dragging Zexion's over his, like some strange healing blanket.

" _-myx, look at me! Are you al-"_

_A large brick house, how strange strange child too smart for his own good, stern-faced-man-father, older boys keeping him safe, college, child, child, Sora, brother-_

Demyx shakes his head. The memories aren't his. They're flavored differently, fading fast, like the impression of smoke before the wind. He tries to stay out of them, but they climb up and claw their way into the forefront of his mind until he relives all the brightest pieces.

_Zexion's first kiss, leaving the large brick house he lived in with so many other children, Cloud, Xigbar, Saix, names he doesn't recognize, Roxas, Vexen, seeing Demyx for the first time and again again because this man is helping him-_

-until the memories overlap with the events of last night, and Demyx sees himself, head lolling to one side, pupils blown wide and unrecognizable, grabbing Zexion's face and-

Pain.

Unimaginable pain, because someone was _inside him, oh god oh god, get out no that's not for you, get out, leave me alone-_ And Demyx just kept going, mindless by that moment.

Demyx covers his mouth, swallowing back the urge to vomit. God, he had just-. And Zexion…

…

Where the hell is Zexion?

Surely he hadn't just left him there. Demyx racks his brain, coming up with nothing other than the vague sense-memory of an apartment that isn't his, the unfamiliar jangle of a set of keys.

Zexion's apartment. Has to be.

_-tucked Zexion in, blankets hiked up over his shoulders, Demyx's hand traces the new lines and terror-bruises under Zexion's eyes, regret seeping through him, before he leaves as quietly as he came-_

Demyx breathes out, relieved. Zexion was safe at home. And Demyx…

Well. Demyx never has to see him again.

He rubs roughly at his face, scrubbing away the leftovers of his tears. That's a good thing, he reminds himself. Seeing Zexion after that wouldn't be a good thing. It could just hurt the both of them more than anything else. And with how he feels…

Huh, with how he feels…

Demyx blinks, tilts his head. The world is awfully quiet today, now that he takes a moment to pay attention. The people living around him, typically scraping against him like rough sandpaper, are barely making anything more than background noise. The hum and bustle of their presence is almost calming, almost familiar and reassuring, for once instead of grating. The blond chews on his lip, presses his thumbs to his temples.

He remembers the water washing away his wounds. Remembers the cleaning burn. So… had Zexion's mind really… blocked out so much of the usual pain that he goes through? How calm his mind is this morning proves that _something_ happened, at least, and the only thing that touched his mind was…

Water.

Demyx closes his eyes and focuses and he can almost relive it, the lotus there beneath his hands in the instant before he tore it asunder and he feels terrible for what he did but… But it's never been this silent before.

God, he wants it to stay like this forever.

(He feels so, so guilty for thinking that, but god, if this is what it takes, he'd do it again in a heartbeat. He'd do it again if it meant this quiet.)

Demyx barely makes it to the bathroom before he throws up.

He breathes in and out, cheek pressed against the cool porcelain rim. The noise of his breath echoes, shuddering, back to his ears, in and out, in and out, and Demyx swallows hard. Lifts his head. As he stands and washes his mouth, he runs a shaking hand through his hair. Panic and guilt fire twisting, sickly warmth through his muscles, and god, Demyx wishes that he could take it back and knows at the same time that he won't.

Twenty-four years, and this is the first real relief that he's had. He's not going back on it now. _What's done is done_ , he thinks, slowly steeling himself against the screaming memory-pain from Zexion, against the rising wash of nausea.

He did it, and he'd do it again, and he has to live with the consequences. And make sure that it never has to happen again.

Zexion doesn't deserve what Demyx did to him.

There is a knock on the door, pulling Demyx out of his reverie.

With sheer determination, Demyx makes his wavering way to the door, glad that his psychosis drove him to clean the apartment, body nausea-weak. He leans heavily against the walls as he goes, and he ignores how much his hands shake as he opens the door to find-

"Yo."

Demyx smiles slightly. Just what he needs. (He's not sure how sarcastic that thought is and focuses instead on stilling his hands.) "Hey, Axel. How're you?"

Axel shrugs slightly, plastic bags rustling with his movement. Demyx looks down at them in curiosity, back up, tries to figure out what seems different about Axel today because something is incredibly off and it's bothering Demyx, like a niggling little splinter. "Not much, man. I was in the neighborhood so I decided to drop by.

Raising one eyebrow, Demyx leans his shoulder against the doorframe, feet crossing at the ankles. "I'm sure. So, why're you _really_ here?"

"Eh, heard a few things from some people I know. Said you were at the bar last night without me." Axel's eyes are hard and he looks Demyx up and down critically. "But you don't look like you went out last night. You actually look pretty… good. For once. Better than you would if you actually _had_ gone out without me."

Demyx winces. "It was that bad, huh?"

"According to Xaldin," Axel says dryly, "you looked like you were trying to use everyone in the bar as a stripper pole at least once during the night. And then you left through the front door, alone, instead of the side or back door with someone, the way you normally do. He got worried about your pattern breaking."

Mouth open, Demyx tries to think of a reasonable explanation, but he just ends up shrugging. "I guess… I remember not feeling very good after a while, so I just came back here."

_And then out again and hands on face and pain and pain and so much pain-_

Demyx grimaces and pushes the memory away. Dwelling on it _will not help_ , and he doesn't want to throw up again, not when Axel is here and feeling so strange.

Axel raises his eyebrow at Demyx's expression but shrugs and hoists the bags in his hands. "Whatever. You up for pizza and some god-awful movies, dude? I brought some pretty bad ones tonight. I figure we can MST:3K this shit up until it's halfway decent."

"I'm always good for some comedy and pizza. Did you-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got you Hawaiian so we can split the pineapple and ham, just the way you like."

"You are the best."

Axel grins and moves past Demyx. "I know."

And that's when Demyx realizes. He can't feel Axel's fire. The redhead's typically exuberant and painfully abrasive emotions are muted, tucked beneath his skin until all Demyx feels is comforting warmth. He stares blankly after Axel, amazed. With a trembling inhale, Demyx leans his full weight against the door.

He might be able to make it through this. With that thought, he pushes off the wall, shaking himself because he doesn't want to get caught just standing there, staring vacantly into the distance.

By the time Demyx gets to his living room, Axel has already set everything up and is stretched out on the couch, one arm hooked over the back. He grins up at Demyx, pats the area between his legs. "C'mere, you. We need to get our cuddle on."

Demyx settles down between Axels legs, snagging a plate of pizza as he does. "What're we watching?"

"Wild Zero. Rock and roll and zombies and the power of love."

"…you find the _shittiest_ movies."

Axel laughs and thumbs through the menu. "Want it with the drinking game or without?"

"I'm not feeling up for alcohol poisoning tonight, Axel," Demyx mutters through his mouthful of pizza. Leaning back into the lanky man, Demyx rests his head against Axel's collarbone, breathes in his ever-present smell of smoke and citrus, something he hasn't actually experienced in years. Axel's amusement curls around him like a friendly cat, warm and rumbling, and his thumb rubs Demyx's shoulder briefly.

Demyx closes his eyes, unsure exactly why he's about to choke back tears.

"Without then." And Axel presses play.

The movie is terrible, without a doubt. Demyx laughs more than he can stand, giving up on putting anything in his mouth after the first twenty minutes for fear of choking, and Axel's frequent calls of "I have the _weirdest_ boner right now" don't help at all. They end up ribbing the movie until Demyx's sides hurt and he has to wheeze for any breath.

(He hasn't been this happy in ages. Demyx doesn't care to try and remember an exact time. He doesn't want to depress himself.)

The credits of the movie roll, and Demyx leans back into Axel, loving the easy heat and enjoyment that he can feel, really _feel_ from Axel that's coming without the typical bite. The redhead accepts the cuddling for a few minutes before he taps Demyx's shoulder to get him up.

"Hey, can we head outside? I need to smoke." Axel stands up before he even gives Demyx a chance to answer, swinging his legs around the blond and stretching his lithe body out. He digs the carton and lighter from his pocket as he adroitly opens the door with his hip and elbow, managing somehow to light a cigarette without burning himself or anyone else.

Demyx follows him, laughing slightly. "You know, I can tell you exactly how much that shortens your lifespan if you'd like."

Exhaling the smoke straight into Demyx's face, Axel grins. "Nah, I'm good. Thanks though."

"Just making sure. I am a medical professional after all." Demyx sits down on the balcony, threading his legs through the spaces in the railing. "It's been a while since we've hung out like this," he mentions absently as he numbs his fingers on the metal.

"Yeah." The railing shifts as Axel rests his weight on it, all long lean lines lit up in the fading light. "Last time was… six? Seven months ago?"

Demyx nods, rubbing his fingers together. The city rumbles on around their still little corner, cars on the street buzzing past, and Demyx traces the fade of the sunset scrolling across the sky. "At least. Maybe more."

"Remember how we always used to hang out in high school? That was awesome. Sleeping over at each other's house every weekend…"

"Making our parents question our sexuality…"

"Rightfully so, because you grind on more dudes than ladies, and don't you deny it."

Demyx bumps Axel's leg with his shoulder, chuckling. "Well yeah, dudes are … easier, I guess." To get off, to get close to, to get what he wants out of them, but Demyx knows better than to say it aloud. "Girls are still pretty though."

The silence that falls is surprisingly easy, Axel sighing out cigarette smoke as Demyx swings his legs into the empty air.

"Speaking of high school, I was always surprised, you know," Axel mentions out of nowhere.

Demyx leans his head back, inhales the scent of smoke and wind. "Hm?"

"To hear that you weren't going to go into music, man. You were pretty fucking spectacular with the piano back in high school. But no, you drop off the face of the earth after graduation and then I hear from you again, a year later, and you're in nursing school!" Axel laughs, raspy from his cigarettes. "Just a helluva surprise. You, of all people, a nurse."

A wry smile twists Demyx lips. "Hard to believe, right?"

"Why'd you do it?"

After a long moment of thought, Demyx answers, voice subdued, "I just… There was something about it."

Something about how raw and scraped to his marrows music always made him feel, and the idea of living with that day after day after performance- he still shudders to think about that. Nursing seemed like a colder, more practical way for him to go. What else was he going to do? He didn't, still doesn't really, have any other skills to speak of. (There's the little corner of his mind that knows that he's doing it to see how long he lasts before he snaps, because while he can't stomach the thought of just ending it all, he can't stop himself from tempting fate anyway.)

Demyx sighs and leans his head against Axel's knee, still swinging his legs absently. "Going into nursing seemed like a better idea, and … well, it has been so far, right?"

Axel nudges Demyx gently, mutters, "Don't think I don't see you ogling the Steinway in that one piano store on Main Street all the time. You want it so bad."

"Well _duh_. You would too if you played piano. Steinways are works of art."

Silence stretches between them again, and Demyx closes his eyes. The fire of Axel's emotions isn't painful, but rather just warm, like sunshine on bare skin, and Demyx allows himself to relax in it, to pull it closer, enjoying the contrast between that heat below his skin and the cold flowing down his throat. What he's feeling doesn't amount to much more than a crackling chorus of " _yes, good, friend, happy, content_ ", and that makes Demyx smile to himself.

The smile turns sickly when he remembers, unbidden, the look in Zexion's eyes, wide and glassy and so so terrified. Axel has no idea, Demyx muses, pulling a knee up to rest his chin on it. He has no clue what Demyx has done.

What he can do.

Flicking a glance at the casually smoking redhead, Demyx sighs, rubs his face. What does he do now? Zexion is … well, Demyx doesn't know how he's doing, and Demyx himself is feeling infinitely better, unlike the screaming pain of the past few days. Jesus, he just wished that he could talk to someone about this.

Someone like Axel. He hasn't really talked to his best friend in years, and the sudden urge to ask him anything, everything, tell him what's going on, is overwhelming.

Demyx's mouth opens and he hears himself start to ask, "Hey, Axel…"

-But what is he going to say? Ask him if he will believe that Demyx can hear and feel everyone else's emotions? He remembers clearly the sting of amused disbelief the last time, the thought-echo of " _c'mon, that'd be crazy. And terrifying. God, that'd be frightening as hell."_ Demyx remembers this clearly, and with his eyes closed, he can almost pretend that it's that day in high school again, with the smell of smoke and clear air twining around him just like now.

This silence has dragged on too long; a nudge breaks him from his reverie. Looking up, Demyx smiles faintly at Axel's raised eyebrow before continuing. Not with the question he wants to ask, of course. Of course not, no matter how tempting it is, how much he _needs_ to get it off his chest. He opens his mouth-

" _Axel, would you believe me if I said that I can feel everyone else's emotions? If I said that I was an empath? Would you? Please. I need_ someone _to believe me."_

"Do you know how long it can take for someone to change someone else's life?" The words don't even sound like they're coming from his throat. Blood echoes in Demyx's ears, muffling his voice, because that's still not the question he wanted to ask, but it's so important anyway. It felt, feels like it has been torn from him, his heart pounding hard in his throat.

Axel cocks his head, his raised eyebrow hitching even higher before a grin spreads across his face. "For me, baby, one night only."

A snort is startled out of Demyx, and he whacks his friend in the leg. "I'm being serious, Axel!"

"So am I," Axel insists, but sits down to thread his legs through the spaces in the bars alongside Demyx, thin wrists resting on the railing above his head, his voice more serious when he continues. "I don't know, really, Demyx. I mean. You change lives every day with the work you do, so sometimes it can only take a few dedicated minutes. Others…" He shrugs. "Days. Weeks. Months. Years, even. Or not at all."

Demyx stares out over the parking lot, his fingers twisting together in the open air. Beside him, Axel swings his legs, _one-two, one-two_ and he speaks again, quieter this time, his voice colored by his cigarettes. "It all depends on the person, really. Sometimes, it happens so smoothly that you don't notice, you can't even pinpoint a moment where it happened, and others… Like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. Totally unexpected and unheard of and when it happens, it rocks you to the center of your being.

"One thing's certain though." Axel's smile is half-melancholy, all self-deprecation, and it makes Demyx's chest twist to see it, feeling the faint burn mirrored in the emotions that are passed between them, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. "You never really forget that person. Or what they did for you." After a moment, he shakes his head. " _To_ you. Not for you, _to_ you."

He takes one last drag from his cigarette, flicks it over the edge. "But whatever, right? Doesn't matter much. Those people don't show up often and when they do, they don't always stay. You've been changed; their job is done."

The flare of bitterness that swamps Demyx then doesn't burn him, doesn't hurt him, but he has to swallow it back, back, back because otherwise he'll choke on it. There is a confused welter of images that he doesn't even bother trying to parse through, instead choosing to just lean against his friend. After a long moment, Axel's hand comes up to rub his shoulder, accepting the gesture.

"I'm sorry," Demyx whispers, throat clogged with too many things to speak of.

Axel laughs humorlessly. "It's nothing you should be worried about. Trust me on that. It happened a while ago. A _long_ while ago. Before I got to be so close you, really."

Demyx closes his eyes and turns his face towards Axel's shoulder, drawing the old pain radiating from Axel into himself. He breathes through its bright, acidic burn, takes it and twists it up inside him, contorts it into something else, something that can accept and transform the pain into a good understanding, before he releases the feeling back.

A low, mollified hum comes from Axel's throat. The redhead stretches his arms out and pulls himself up, thumbs hooked in his pockets. "C'mon, Dem," he says, some of his earlier humor returned, chasing the darkness from his face. "There are more bad movies that are just calling your name."

"Ugh, as long as it's not shit like _Zardoz_ again. I don't think I can get that drunk twice in my life." Demyx hoists himself up carefully. He checks Axel's expression for … anything really, and finds that a great deal of weight has left it, leaving him more relaxed around the eyes. Sighing in relief, Demyx follows Axel back into the apartment.

He's quiet while they resume their positions and Axel pops in some other awful movie, turning over what just happened in his mind. Demyx took something bad and made it bearable, made it able to be managed in Axel's own time. He had only thought he _might_ be able to do something that useful.

But it worked.

Holy shit, it _worked._

He took the bitterness, the knotted little ball of anger that had never quite let Axel go, and he made it… disappear. Gave it back in understandable chunks. Whatever. But whatever he did, Axel feels better for it.

A warm glow spreads under Demyx's sternum, and he feels for the first time like maybe, just maybe, his empathy could be less of a burden.

Maybe it could actually _help_.


	10. Tell Me Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He curls around himself tighter, knowing that his apology means nothing, that he cannot say sorry enough for what he had done_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I uh. Really have no excuse for this taking five months. Except for I lost my passion for this story and it took me until now to get it back. For that, I apologize. I’ve gotten much faster at writing, though (not that you’d be able to tell, hah, five months for an update, I AM SO SORRY GUYS SERIOUSLY I AM YOU ARE PATIENT AND I LOVE YOU), since I wrote most of this today. Happy late Christmas, have some angst and sadfic, I’m sure that’s what you all wanted, right?

The alarm goes off.

A hand stretches out and smacks the offending noise maker until it shuts off. Demyx stretches slowly, rubbing at his eyes to get the crusts off of them, glad for the lack of noise. A disgruntled mutter comes from behind him, and a limp arm and leg are flung over his prone form, their warm weight pressing him back down into the mattress. A tired sort of discomfort, petulant in the way that only someone half-awake can be, crests over him, dragging and pulling and inexorable like gravity.

“ _C’me back to beedddd,”_ Axel’s thought-voice comes, indistinct. _“Where’re you goin’, stay here, you’re waaaarm.”_ Demyx stifles a laugh as he sleepily pushes the offending limbs off, and he wonders briefly why he’s not more

 tired, why his mind is snapping and painfully awake even this early.

“Axel, I have to get up. C’mon, you have to let me go.”

The response to that is entirely incoherent but probably rude, so Demyx nudges Axel again, grinning. “Nnnnngh, no, warm,” comes a whine from beneath the covers. “Stay sleepin’.”

“You know, if you don’t let go of me, I’ll take you on the run with me. See how warm you are after that.”

Demyx chuckles to himself as Axel almost immediately unwraps himself from Demyx and flips over, dragging most of the blanket with him. It makes it easier to slide off of the bed without a warm body wrapped around him, and Demyx feels remarkably clear headed this morning all in all. (He still tries to not think about why, and sort of hates himself for doing it. He shouldn’t be avoiding the reason, but… he can’t really help it either, can he?)

It’s easy, routine to pull on his running pants, the ratty and stained shirt he always uses, and he jogs down the rickety stairs with a spring in his step that he wants to enjoy and deny at the same time. He finds his rhythm easily, nodding to the people passing by, their impact no more than a gentle push against his psyche.

Around the corner, heel-toe, heel-toe, and Demyx breathes in the crisp, damp morning air. It fills his lungs in a sharp sort of way, the aftertaste coming sweet and clear and halfway painful, and he doesn’t hurt. God, he doesn’t hurt, and it is marvelous how easy it is to run by people without being dragged down by their pain. He pushes himself faster, lengthening his strides to settle out the burn.

He’s calmed by his run, by the simple motion of his legs moving him, one powerful step at a time, and he loses track of exactly where he’s going, letting his instincts guide him to where he needs to go. It’s been years since he’s let himself run like this, all out and without care and it’s… liberating. He missed it. Probably more than he’d like to admit sometimes. He hates it when he has to restrain himself, and that’s all the past few years have been; restraint. No Demyx, don’t do this, Demyx, you can’t do that and now….

Demyx inhales, closes his eyes very briefly as he moves, and when he opens them it’s-

_-nighttime, and there’s a heavy weight on his shoulder; he’s carrying someone, their body a limp, warm weight against him, and he’s pulling images from their mind to make sure that yes, this is the way to go, just up this street and to the right and-_

Demyx comes to a halt, breathing hard. He blinks, morning light flaring in his eyes.

What?

He shakes his head, closes his eyes, and rests his hands on his knees as he sucks in heavy breaths. Fuck, Demyx stopped too quickly. But what was that memory there? Nothing he particularly recognizes, but at the same time … it’s definitely his. It has all the flavor of being his. He chews on his lip absently and checks out the street signs, trying to see where he is; he’s never been up this street before, hasn’t gone anywhere here, actually, and come to think of it, now that he’s looking around, Demyx doesn’t even know where he is. The streets and storefronts around him are completely foreign upon closer inspection. He swears under his breath, turns around. His footsteps beckon him back to his apartment.

Demyx frowns and cocks his head. Something about this area is starting to look... incredibly familiar, like he’s seen it before, walked it a million times, but he knows he’s never been here before.

But if he goes up that street there and takes a right….

Biting his lip, Demyx cautiously extends his mind.

_Water._

He recoils.

_Water, slow dripping and smooth, an endless still pond of emotions, and in the distance, the faintest glow of a sigil-lotus._

_The innate knowledge of a name._

_Zexion._

Demyx runs. Desperately this time, back to safety, back away from Zexion because he can’t. He can’t see Zexion. That’s asking for trouble. _What if, what if, what if_ , flies through Demyx’s mind and he shakes his head, careening around the corners back to his apartment. He has no room for what ifs. He can’t afford them.

He’s better now. And he doesn’t want to see the look on Zexion’s face again. He already felt the pain of what he had done to Zexion from the inside, he…

…is back in front of his apartment. He darts up the stairs, two at a time, rattling the whole structure, and he can’t take this anymore. Opening the door, he gets inside. Shutting it behind him locks Zexion out, keeps him away, and Demyx will take that. Zexion doesn’t ever have to see him again.

No matter how much Demyx wants to apologize.

No matter how confused Zexion must be about what happened.

His apartment is silent except for his heavy breathing, and Demyx shakes his head, pushes himself away from the door and heads into the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on. Axel likes having something to wake up to, and he figures it’s the least he can do since he rolled out of bed this morning.

Demyx sighs heavily, his heart finally returning to its normal pace, and he heads into his bedroom to lean against the doorframe and eye the lump of blankets on his bed. Yep. Doesn’t look like Axel’s moved much.

“Are you out of bed yet?” he asks, pitching his voice just right to be absolutely impossible to ignore.

From the bed, there’s a rustling motion as blankets and pillows are pushed aside. Emerging from the depths, Axel grumbles at Demyx, his face a pale semi-circle in the wild mass of red that comprises his hair. Demyx has to muffle a laugh. Axel has never been the most graceful person to wake up. Entertaining, but not graceful. “Yeah, I’m awake. Against my will, but awake.”

“Why is it against your will?”

“Because some health freak decided to go running and took all of the warmth with him so I couldn’t get back to a comfortable sleep. Here’s a hint: the health freak is you and I hate you; please tell me you’ve made coffee.”

Demyx shakes his head, amused. “You’re in luck, there’s a pot brewing as we speak.”

“You are a lovely and wonderful person.”

“Suck up.”

“Damn straight.” Axel pushes himself upright and yawns widely, scratching at his slim torso as he does. Blearily looking at Demyx, he asks, “Want me to make us some pancakes?”

Demyx nods. “I’m going to get a shower real fast though, okay?”

Axel waves him off, and Demyx takes that as the acknowledgement it is and heads into the shower. By the time he’s done, Axel has breakfast ready, and Demyx hops into his work clothes. “Can you drive me into work?” he asks, grabbing a few slices of bread and fixing a sandwich quickly to take in.

“Not a problem, kid. Just get-“ Axel looks up, grins. “Never mind, you’re already ready to go. Come on, then.”

The drive is quiet, something Demyx appreciates with the turmoil of his thoughts. Why had he started going towards Zexion’s apartment? It just doesn’t make sense. He shouldn’t even really remember where it is, and given what he did to Zexion the last time they saw each other… Well. Demyx sighs heavily, an uneasy knot of guilt sitting low in his stomach. He shouldn’t have any reason for wanting to see Zexion again. Not really. Not unless he was going to do something like finish the job, which is just.

Demyx laughs under his breath, and the noise is mostly manic and unsettled, interrupting the quiet taps of Axel’s fingers against the steering wheel. If he was really going to finish the job… Just take and take until Zexion had nothing else left to give, Demyx is more screwed up than he gave himself credit for. He already violated Zexion’s thoughts. He didn’t think he was the sort of person to want to try and destroy someone completely. In his periphery, he can see Axel glance his way, but the hospital is right in front of them, and Demyx jumps at the chance to get out before Axel can ask.

“Hey, thanks,” he says, leaning down into the car. “For coming over last night and for the ride in this morning.”

Axel waves it off, but his green eyes are sharp on Demyx, piercing. Swallowing, Demyx grins, trying to appear gentle, unthreatening, completely okay, and Axel must buy it, since the redhead just smiles back. “Anytime, Demyx. You know I always want to hang out more without there being a club around us.”

“I know.”

“Want me to pick you up tonight?”

Shaking his head, Demyx backs away, up onto the curb. “Nah, you’re good. I’ll talk to you later though, okay?”

Axel nods, and Demyx shuts the car door, turning to walk into the hospital and begin his shift.

The hospital slides around him, and it’s… quiet. Demyx can still sense everything that is within the walls, but it all seems muted and far away, the chatter of a far off crowd that he has no intention of getting nearer to. It makes him almost able to focus for once, and isn’t that a change? With light steps, Demyx heads up to his station, a cautious smile on his face. His large-bodied manager is sitting at the front desk in the pediatric ward, and Demyx waves.

“Hey, Lexaeus!”

Lexaeus looks up, blinks at Demyx, then squints, a smile crossing his face. “Ah yes, you are cleared for duty again, aren’t you?”

“Yep. It’s been a week now.” Demyx fidgets with the hem of his scrubs, a frown twisting the corner of his mouth. “I _am_ able to work again, aren’t I? I’m not just imagining that?”

He looks up as Lexaeus stands, walks over to him. The large man puts a hand on Demyx’s shoulder and examines him, his eyes traversing the whole length of Demyx’s body. Demyx licks his lips, but stands still under his scrutiny. Through the contact in his shoulder, he can feel relief, concern, all in geometric angles and reflections, glittering stony emotions, and the large nurse nods slowly. “You look much better,” he rumbles, quietly. “Like you’ve been taking care of yourself and getting some sleep again. Before, you looked… run over, at least. Or like you were going to fall apart any second. Do you feel better?”

Demyx licks his lips. Opens his mouth. “Yes. Yeah, I do. I mean, it’s been … nice to have the time off, I guess. You know. Get to think, hang out with friends. Whatever.”

Smiling, Lexaeus nods, claps Demyx on the shoulder (almost knocking him over in the process), and goes to sit back down. “That’s good.  That’s what we had worried about. Little things are important, you know. Now. Why don’t you go pick up your charts and get started checking out the patients. There are at least some of them who were asking after you.”

And Demyx would be lying if he said that didn’t bring an honest grin to his face.

He grabs his clipboard and heads off to the children, his steps light and hopeful. It’s as Lexaeus says; when he gets to the rooms, the children he knows are lighting up and happy to see him. Denzel seems less pessimistic about his opportunities of survival for once and grins freely up at Demyx, chattering to him excitedly about one of his friends who had come in to speak with him earlier. When Demyx enters Kairi’s room, she squeals and hides something under the blanket and almost refuses to let him check her vitals because she’s “working on something for you, you dummy! It gets unlucky if you see it before it’d done!”

Demyx lets Kairi chide him out of the room, laughing under his breath as he goes.

As he straightens up from his laughter, writing something down in his notebook, a flash of a long black coat appears in the corner of Demyx’s vision, and his heart picks up, stuttering into a loud and uneven rhythm against his sternum. Surely…

Zexion?

But no, it’s just another parent of one of the kids here, one who flashes Demyx a concerned look as he hurries past, and Demyx can feel the blood slowly return to his face. Fuck. Fuck, _fuck_ , he thinks as he slowly sinks down, resting his back against the nearest wall. He can’t. God, he had thought that was Zexion, that Zexion had come here to face him down, to pin him down and force him to explain what he has done.

Demyx wouldn’t have had any way to escape if Zexion had, and he lets out a muffled and uneasy laugh. It dies into silence the next moment as Demyx comes to an awful and slow realization, his guts twisting uncomfortably.

Zexion _could_ see him again.

And Demyx wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Not if he came to the pediatric ward. It’s not like anyone would have a reason to stop him from asking about Demyx, either. Not around here. Everyone would remember that Demyx was Sora’s attending nurse, and most everyone would remember Zexion, the quiet man who sat for hours on end outside a door he wasn’t allowed through.

But is he going to come? Is he going to drop in and pull Demyx to the side, bruises and madness beneath his eyes?

Demyx doesn’t know.

Honestly, that bothers Demyx more than he’d like to admit. He _wants_ to know, with a sick sort of fascination, if Zexion is going to try and see him, if he’s going to have his secret spilled messily in public. There’s a sicker part of him that wants Zexion to do it. Just so he doesn’t have to hide anymore. So all of the blame can be taken off his shoulders and his life will become someone else’s problem. He can’t pretend that it’s not true, or that he wouldn’t be taken away to be looked at, prodded. In a world of psychically null people, is he the only one who can do things like this? Or are there others, also in hiding?

He can be an example.

_“Don’t be like me. You’ll die. Hide better, cover your tracks better, or take care of yourself before someone else does.”_

Demyx shakes his head, jittery. Wow, he needs to go back to work and pay attention again. The hallway he’s in feels almost stifling with worry and a fatalistic belief that everything will end in death, and he needs to clear that up. Before anyone else comes in and is affected by it. Closing his eyes, Demyx breathes in and tries to pull the oppressive feel of the air into him, turning it like he did with Axel’s bitterness the night before. It responds sluggishly, but eventually twists itself into a more breathable atmosphere. Hopefully one of relaxation, but Demyx will settle for neutral at the moment.

He pushes himself up slowly. He has work to still finish, rounds to complete.

He’s fine.

And as long as he keeps telling himself that, it’s true.

There’s nothing wrong.

He’s fine.

* * *

 

Axel isn’t there when he makes it back to his apartment at the end of the evening, which is probably a good thing. Demyx sits down on his bed, rubs his face, and really wishes that he felt as good as he had that morning, not as worn out as he does. But as he waits and eats and reads a book in the fading light in his apartment, the exhaustion slowly slips off from him. He isn’t as stable as he was this morning, that much it absolutely certain, but he isn’t as bad as he normally is either. He’ll take the small victory that is.

Demyx sighs into the lonely darkness of his sloppy apartment and lies down. God, and it had only been yesterday where he had thought that what he had could be useful. He shakes his head. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Demyx just needs to sleep it off.

With that in mind, Demyx closes his eyes and buries himself under his warm blankets.

_Zexion, wide-eyed and blank-faced, a shell of what he used to be, heavy bruises under his eyes, and he can’t sleep, can’t talk, can’t do anything because Demyx broke him. Demyx broke him and Demyx doesn’t care. Just keeps coming back to dip his fingers inside Zexion’s brain to feed the tearing daggers of pain so they don’t get to Demyx first._

_Demyx doesn’t care._

_Zexion pleads with him for help, quiet tears tracing down his face that is unrecognizable in his agony. But he is agonized because Demyx gave it all to him didn’t he? It’s all Demyx’s fault. Zexion had done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing, but Demyx just went through there and tore him apart. Demyx helps himself to the calm of Zexion’s mind, tearing it further asunder with nothing more than a laugh, callous and cruel, and he will go on forever._

**_Demyx doesn’t care. He will do this forever to feel better and he will feel nothing and-_ **

Demyx wakes up, the echoes of screams in his ears and body cold with fear-sweat. Guilt crushes him, and it has no edges, is endless and vast because it is his and his alone, crushing him slowly. It weighs on him, what he’s done, and Demyx holds his knees to his chest, breathing in and out in labored breaths.

“I’m sorry, Zexion.”

He curls around himself tighter, knowing that his apology means nothing, that he cannot say sorry enough for what he had done ( _for what he might do again_ , he thinks, guilty and sick and hating himself), for the absolute and terrible invasion he committed. He is disgusting, worthless. Cruel. Needlessly hurting one of the only people, the only person he’s ever known who feels _right_ to him.

Now there is nothing he can ever do to make it up.

And there is no one to blame but himself.

“I’m sorry.”

A hiccoughing sob, dry and without tears. Painful, all the same, because there is no amount of tears that could ever give Demyx catharsis.

“ _I’m so sorry_.”

There is nothing that can forgive him for what he’s done.


	11. Can I Please You Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demyx shakes the thought off. _Focus_ , he tell himself, looking hard at the clipboard between his trembling hands. _Focus._
> 
> _You can't afford to lose focus._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry this took me an unbearable amount of time. But hey, life happens and then you fix the structure of an entire story, and next thing you know, you've graduated college and gone through two jobs, so. I'm going to bust my ass to get the next chapters out, so you don't have to worry too much, hopefully.

 

Demyx sits through the quiet hours of the night. His forehead is pressed against his knees, his breathing heavy and rasping when he's paying attention to it, and the noises of the people around him, their emotions, are-

-regular.

Calm and asleep, dreaming of sweet nothings and terror, but all alone and sleeping still.

No one was even disturbed by his screaming. He's sure he should be grateful, but he can't seem to muster up that much effort. Not when even breathing is a herculean task. Demyx shakes uncontrollably, even wrapped up in himself like he is. He doesn't cry. What he feels is too vast to be funneled through that medium anymore, and he's focusing on ignoring the hot pricks of guilt and panic that speckle his back and shoulders.

He should go back to sleep. It's late, he has work tomorrow. Demyx needs his rest.

He can't manage, the image of Zexion, glassy-eyed and not-himself, too near. It haunts him every time his eyes close, so Demyx keeps them open until they're sandy and raw, until blinking hurts. His mind drifts, nudging against his neighbors' sleeping thoughts. They're all perfectly normal. Aimless and unfocused dream emotions, flitting unpredictably back and forth, subject to change at any given notice, and what Demyx wouldn't give to just be able to live his life like theirs.

The thought comes to him.

He could.

For a heavy price, he could.

If only touching Zexion's mind had helped him so much just once, how would it help if Demyx took it all?

If he was willing to absolutely destroy Zexion, he could go through his days with a layer of protection between him and the outside world. He knows what happened there, that somehow, whatever he did to Zexion created this shield for his mind against the emotions of others. But doing it again… That would probably mean that Zexion would always be that hollow shell, and right now, Demyx only hopes that he didn't actually hurt or damage Zexion permanently. That maybe, just maybe, Zexion doesn't even remember what happened.

If only the bar had worked like it was supposed to! He was supposed to have felt better after that, like an acid bath cleaning him of all of the corrosion built up on him.

But no.

He had felt so, so much worse.

Letting out a whimpering sigh, Demyx clenches his fingers tighter together, feeling the tendons ache as they protest the movement. Guilt lies heavily in his stomach, churning and too-present to ignore by scanning other people's minds like he's trying to do. The bar had made him sick, and what happened with Zexion, the absolute violation of self….

Demyx closes his eyes briefly just to feel the sting and pain of too-dry eyes closing around salt. He feels sick. It's an endless cycle. If one thing had worked, but it didn't or its price was too high, so he needs to do something to scab over the rawness of his mind, but he doesn't want to risk the pain of the bar, and if he sees Zexion again, there's no telling what's going to happen.

For now, Demyx drifts, bumping up against his neighbors' minds like an overly friendly cat, albeit one potentially lined with lightning.

He's going in circles, and it's driving him mad.

When he pulls back into himself, sunlight is warming one side of his body. Demyx breathes in once, twice. Daytime already? The night had seemed endless, but now the sun is rising, its rays sneaking through the slats of his blinds as Demyx blinks slowly.

He shakes his head.

Whatever, it doesn't matter. He has work, which means that he has a run to go on.

(Remembering what happened last time, Demyx chews on his lip. He should stick close to the apartment. A shorter run won't hurt him just this once.)

With a sigh, he pulls on his tennis shoes and clothes and clatters down the steps.

* * *

Demyx comes jogging back up the rattling stairs of his apartment, legs not nearly as loose as they should be, his thoughts still moving too-far and too-fast. He winces as his mind nudges up against his neighbors' minds, weight on a wound that he is trying to let heal, and Demyx shakes his head, forces himself to focus. _I should be able to go further in a few days_ , he thinks. _I'll be fine by then, I'm sure._ And that thought carries him through his shower, his breakfast, a constant mantra of " _I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I_ have _to be fine."_

Demyx pulls on his scrubs and carefully does not look at himself, all pale-skinned and hollow-eyed in the mirror.

He can do this.

He can absolutely do this. He doesn't need Zexion to survive. He just needs himself, once he gets back onto an even keel. This is just some weird aberration, and he's going to get back to normal (hah) and keep going the way he always has. He will survive.

He has to. He's done this for twenty-four years, and he made one mistake, and it's never going to happen again.

Demyx will always be fine, in the end.

(He will survive, Demyx repeats to himself as he goes to work, because he doesn't know what else to do, and the alternatives are frightening, but there are worse reasons to keep living than fear.)

* * *

His shift at the hospital goes well, all in all. Demyx still spends it half-looking over his shoulder, wondering if he'll be able to sense the rush of water before Zexion comes close enough, if he has enough time to run away before he gets swallowed. Wondering if Zexion's even mad, or if he even remembers anything.

Demyx shakes the thought off. _Focus_ , he tell himself, looking hard at the clipboard between his trembling hands. _Focus._

_You can't afford to lose focus._

Not when the minds of the ill and worried crowd in against his own. Not when the walls are warping in a way he hasn't seen them do in weeks, all of the colors ill and mixing together. Demyx tries to draw up a glass-thin pane of protection, and his head throbs as the background noise fades to a dull roar, the walls stabilizing but still moving. Better than nothing. He is about to turn a corner when someone, soft and warm with thoughts scented like flowers, runs into him.

Demyx takes a step back, then forward, offering Aerith an awkward smile. "Sorry, Aerith. I didn't see you there."

She smiles and waves one hand. "It's alright, Demyx. I'm fine." She surveys the clipboards in his hands and tilts her head to the side. Carefully, she flips through some of the paperwork she's holding, and Demyx watches, waits, as she pulls out one chart in particular. "Though, if you want to make it up to me…"

(He sighs, mouth ticking to the side. Aerith feels nothing but mischievous, so he doubts it's anything bad, but right now, Demyx just wants to be left alone.)

"You can take this," Aerith finishes, passing the chart to Demyx.

Demyx flips it open, and Kairi's familiar blue eyes are looking back up at him from the attached photograph. He blinks. Kairi's a model patient, so why…? He raises an eyebrow at Aerith. "Why are you giving me this?"

Aerith's smile softens. "She's been asking for you."

_Oh._

"Thanks," he says, and means it.

Aerith waves him off; it's something close to a benediction from her, a forgiveness for his bad attitude before, and gratitude floods Demyx. "Just go visit her."

Demyx nods, walks down the hallway to knock on Kairi's door, and he smiles when his appearance makes a bright grin spread across Kairi's face. "Hey, kiddo. How're you doing?"

From there, it's all routine, until right when he's about to leave, her file tucked securely under his arm.

"I finished the charm for you! You need to take it now," Kairi calls. She fidgets until he comes back over to her bed.

Demyx leans over to humor her, laughing just slightly as he holds his hand out.

Kairi squints at him, face twisted up. "Close your eyes."

Demyx does as she asks, and it's only a moment later that there's a solid weight in his palm.

"Alright, you can open them now."

He turns his face down before he opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is the charm. It's made of blue and purple shells, and it _feels_ deep in a way that isn't normal, like Demyx can just sink into it, all warmth and terror, and when Demyx looks up at Kairi again, the walls have stopped moving completely for the first time today.

Kairi looks up at him with eyes that are too serious to be a child's, old and knowing and Demyx's chest aches for it.

"Take it," she repeats, oddly intense, pressing the seashells into his hand again with all the insistence a six year old can muster. "You need all of the luck you can get."

Demyx tries (and fails) to not be unsettled by that.

But he takes the seashells anyway, the smooth edges of them soothing as he runs his fingers over them, and he smiles at Kairi. "Thanks," Demyx says quietly. "I think I sort of do too."

The strange-serious expression on Kairi's face clears up almost immediately, and she grins widely. Demyx can't help but to smile back. He ruffles her hair, glad that it's through latex gloves, though he doesn't have to touch her to feel how radiantly proud of herself she is.

He puts the charm in his pocket, and it doesn't surprise him, somehow, that it does start to make him feel better.

The remainder of his shift passes almost placidly, for their ward anyway. Demyx hides in an abandoned room and breathes through a headache, breathes until it no longer feels like his head will pop off of his shoulders, and when he comes back out, his smile is a little weaker. Demyx still grits his teeth through the last hour of it on the floor working, scraped raw and open and eventually, he ends up at the nurses' station on Aerith's orders, head down on his arms, breathing through the nausea as his mind flutters from one person's to the next.

"Demyx!"

At the sound of his name, Demyx jerks his head up from its position resting on his forearms. Axel is there in front of him, leaning on the high desk, clad from collarbones to ankles in black clothing, and it makes the tendons on his bared wrists and hands stand out that much more. His keys are swinging in his hand, and they're making so much _noise_.

(Demyx wants to hit them out of his hands and beg him to never pick them up again.)

Almost as though he heard that, Axel sweeps the keys into his palm, stifling the rattling with one motion. "Coming along, Demyx?"

Demyx … Demyx shakes his head, rubbing one temple harshly. "I don't… Axel, what are you doing here?" he asks, hoping that he sounds lost and not angry. From the amused burn of patience he feels from Axel, he succeeds in that much at least, and Demyx watches a wide smile spread across Axel's face.

"I'm taking you home with me! It's the end of your shift and you don't have work tomorrow, right? So, I figured, why not have a movie night or something at mine?"

(Demyx could kiss him.

Demyx could cry right now.

Demyx could walk down the street, take a bus three miles south, take a right, and run the remaining distance to -

No.)

"Sure," Demyx finally answers, and he drags a painful smile on, making sure the corners of his eyes crinkle with it. "That sounds great, Axel!"

Axel grins, all angles and pleasure and bright, radiant heat, and he rocks back on his heels, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "Good. Go get your shi-stuff and let's get out of here. Sorry, everyone, but I'm stealing him."

The nurses all laugh, and Demyx can feel even Lexaeus' amusement from here.

"Take him, he works too hard," Aerith shouts, which sets off another round of teasing, and Demyx shakes his head easily, breathes through the disorientation that causes him, and gathers his stuff. It'll be nice to hang out with Axel. If nothing else, going to Axel's will at least keep him further away from Zexion, which means…

Less of a chance for him to wake up somewhere he doesn't quite know.

* * *

Hours later, after food and movies and laughter and fire all around him, Demyx is sitting on Axel's bed, awake and staring at his hands, shivering from a combination of cold and exhaustion.

Axel breathes slowly and steadily beside him. Curiously, Demyx trails his fingers across Axel's cheeks, and it's like dragging them through coals, the pain shooting like lightning up his arm. They lift once they've passed the smooth cut of Axel's jaw. Demyx holds his hand in front of his face, staring at it like it can reveal the answers to all of his questions. But the pain was all mental; his fingertips look no different than they usually do in the blue shadowing of nighttime.

He wants to cry.

- _pleading with him to stop, stop_ please-

Crying will get him nowhere.

Slowly, Demyx draws his knees up to his chest, hikes the blanket he brought over his shoulders. He can't go to sleep. He can't stand to see those eyes again, not when he knows, beyond a doubt, that if he tried…

Last time he went to sleep, he found Zexion.

His fingers clench.

He can't do that again.

So what if it means he has to return to the pain that he's lived with his entire life? He's done it for twenty-four years so far. He can handle it for longer. And if it means that he never gets to see Zexion again… So be it.

Demyx has already suffered through the pain before; he can do it again.

_No you can't_ , a small part of him whispers. _Not without killing yourself in the process. You're going to die doing this. Trying to be noble. Shouldn't you want to survive?_

Demyx shakes his head, then stills as Axel shifts next to him. Holding his breath for a few moments, he stares at Axel, trying to decipher if he's asleep or awake. He doesn't want to answer all of Axel's questions about why he's not sleeping.

And then Axel lets out the most gargling, undignified snore Demyx has ever heard him make.

A laugh is startled out of him, and though he quickly muffles the noise, his shoulders shake with the effort of holding it back. And that, bizarrely enough, is what sets off his tears, his laughter transforming into hiccupping sobs. Demyx buries his face in his knees, bites down on the tender skin of his wrist and forearm because he can't wake Axel up.

He has the inane thought that _he'd_ like to wake up. Demyx would love to find out that all of this is just a dream. He doesn't know what he'd wake up to, or when, necessarily, he would wake up but as long as nothing with Zexion ever happened…

He just wants to wake up.

(He can't live like this. Maybe he could have with just the pain, but the guilt is eating him alive. But Demyx has made a habit of surviving, and this is just another stumble along that path.)

When the sun rises, Demyx goes back home, asking Axel to drop him off a few blocks away from his apartment just so he can stretch out his legs and run a little bit. Axel side-eyes him slightly, curiosity and a strange sort of paranoia smouldering along Demyx's skin, but does as Demyx asks.

Demyx watches Axel speed off before he stretches, letting his muscles feel the pull and burn of the movements before he lets himself start off at a slow jog. The morning is bright and slightly overcast, light grey clouds covering the sky. It's beginning to warm up, enough that Demyx's breath only just fogs as he runs, letting the acid-slide of people go past him.

Storekeepers, pedestrians, drivers, all of them are dragging burrs through him, but as he wakes up more, Demyx is able to shoulder them off better and better. Demyx lets out a tight breath as he waits at a red light, shaking out his leg muscles. His control is much better when he's fully awake. But even so, this morning seems easier than last night, which shouldn't be the case. Demyx doesn't remember sleeping, so by all accounts, he should be exhausted and about ready to fall over.

For now, he puts it out of his mind.

The closer Demyx gets to his apartment, the better he feels, and he takes his pace a little faster than usual. He feels great! His energy is bounding all of the sudden, the mental equivalent of splashing water on his face probably from an adrenaline high, and it's like he can't feel anyone as acutely anymore, so the mental pain is all soft-edged and fine. Like sunlight through water.

Demyx's blood freezes.

Water.

Patience, never ending and river-smooth, and a faint glow of a sigal lotus, and Demyx rounds the corner to the opening of the staircase up to his apartment.

And Demyx, with dread dropping heavy in his stomach, looks up.

There, in front of his door.

_Water, and Demyx could drown in it if he isn't careful_.

Zexion looks at him from the top of the stairs, sneakers crossed at his ankles, elbows resting on his knees. He looks Demyx over from head to toe, draws in a deep, shaky breath before he sets his mouth, an unhappy slant to the side as Zexion stands upright, force evident in every motion. Frustration and a solid sort of determination rush over Demyx, bullheaded, and Demyx plants his feet to weather it. Or he would, but he has no way of really holding on, and it's like he's going under, pulled out to sea and adrift in the wake as Zexion builds up his words. And then:

"We," Zexion grates out, in a voice that has been overused and underused in turns, "need to talk, Demyx."

The words echo in his ears.

_Shit._

 


	12. A Little Bit Lost Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pushed to action, Demyx grabs his keys. Or tries to anyway, fumbles them, laughs nervously. And Zexion looks on, impassive. Zexion shifts, moves out of the way of Demyx’s door, the motion somehow deliberate and almost … angry. Not almost, if Demyx pays attention to how wary and hostile the water around him is, but he flinches away from that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, an update that didn't take two years! How about that. It's like if I pay attention, I can keep reliably updating fics or something. Weird.
> 
> (shoutout to the people in the Zemyx Network on tumblr! Love you guys ♥ )

Demyx stares at Zexion, so surprised that his mind is a blank slate, washed clean except for one, panicked thought.

What is he even doing here?

Demyx can’t figure it out even once the fading panic frees up his thoughts, his mind racing with too many possibilities to sort through, not the least of which is how Zexion even found him. It’s too much, and for a long moment, Demyx is frozen. Staring.

"We are not having this conversation out in the cold, however," Zexion says as though several moments had not passed since he spoke last.

Pushed to action, Demyx grabs his keys. Or tries to anyway, fumbles them, laughs nervously. And Zexion looks on, impassive. Zexion shifts, moves out of the way of Demyx’s door, the motion somehow deliberate and almost … angry. Not almost, if Demyx pays attention to how wary and hostile the water around him is, but he flinches away from that.

Zexion is silent behind him as Demyx steps forward and shakily pulls out the correct key, and he is impossible to ignore. Every bit of Demyx is wound up and thrumming in Zexion’s very presence, eagerly attuned, and Demyx’s relief would be welcome if it wasn’t swamped by the knotted guilt and dread sitting heavily in his stomach. His hands are trembling. The key scratches around the lock as he tries to get it in.

It takes Demyx way too many tries to push the key into the lock, and when he finally does, he has to bolster himself for a moment, taking refuge in the warm water that is now sloshing up against the edges of his mind before he breathes in deeply and pushes the door open.

Oh god.

His apartment is a fucking mess.

Everything is a disaster. There are clothes and trash and dishes everywhere. Demyx abruptly wishes he could crowd Zexion back outside, but the idea of touching him again makes Demyx panic, and he’s not quite sure what to do about that. He steps in regardless, enough to let Zexion in behind him, and he tries to discreetly shove aside a few of the piles of trash. It doesn’t quite work; he ends up making it worse.

Zexion surveys his apartment with an expression of disdain, ripples of unease trembling against Demyx.

“Would you like… something to drink?” Demyx offers, when it becomes obvious that Zexion is going to continue his silence.

Zexion looks from the living room into the kitchen, then back at Demyx, raising an eyebrow. He stops himself before he even speaks, shaking his head. It appears not to be a dismissal when Zexion says, “Yes, I would like something to drink. Tea, if you have it,” he adds, flicking another doubtful glance at the state of Demyx’s kitchen.

Demyx bobs a nod, and picks his way over to the kitchen, Zexion following in his footsteps. Once they arrive there, Demyx busies himself with the electric kettle there, filling it up from the tap with enough water for two mugs of tea as Zexion shuffles aside some of the trash, moving it just enough to clear up a bit of room on the faux-wood floor.

They are silent as they wait for the water to boil.

Demyx finds that his breathing comes harder and harder as the anticipation and anxiety builds.

What does Zexion want?

What is he doing here?

_What does he want?_

The sound of bubbling and faint whistling from the kettle spurs Demyx into action again, and he busies himself with that for a moment, glad to not have to look at Zexion for a moment. Demyx pours two glasses of tea, sets one down in front of Zexion, pulls forward a stool. Gingerly, Demyx blows on the surface of his tea and watches Zexion for any hint of what he’s going to try to talk about. Words bubble under Demyx’s tongue, and he swallows them, nervous.

Eventually, Zexion breaks the standoff.

“Alright, Demyx, care to explain why, four nights ago, I found you half-delirious and mostly out of your mind and then woke up the the most blinding pain, alone and in my apartment again?”

Oh shit.

Shit, what should Demyx even say?

He opens and closes his mouth time and time again, trying to think of something, anything plausible, and he just comes up blank. What should Demyx say? Maybe that … Demyx had gotten mixed up in something bad? And had just been coming down from a bad high or something? Demyx knows he looks enough like a drug addict to pull it off, but he is pulled out of his thoughts when Zexion sets his mug down with a distinctly stern air. He’s still standing, looming a few scant inches above Demyx in a way that has to be deliberate.

“Do not,” Zexion says icily, “lie to me right now. My head has felt like it was backed over repeatedly by an eighteen wheeler for three solid days, worse than any migraine I have ever had the misfortune to experience. If it was some form of blunt force trauma, I would have been able to find some kind of wound, but I know, somehow, that you’re part of this. You should be glad I haven’t already gone to the authorities. Now, tell me. What did you do?”

Demyx doesn’t quite know what to say to that. He closes his mouth, worries his lower lip with his teeth until he can taste the coppery tang of blood. Alright, so direct evasion was out. But. The truth is…

Demyx doesn’t know if he can do the truth.

Not that Zexion can’t handle it (and not that Demyx thinks that he can, either), but what if Demyx can’t? What if Demyx can’t stand to tell someone the truth?

He takes a deep breath.

“Zexion? Do you… believe in the supernatural?” Demyx starts weakly, then buries his face in his hands, dragging them down his cheeks roughly. “Oh god, I already sound insane.”

Zexion gives him an unimpressed look. “I believe, Demyx, that the supernatural has no bearing on the real world. It’s fiction.”

“But…” Demyx draws up a little bit closer to himself, stung. Under his breath, he mutters, “It’s not so supernatural if you’re the one living it.”

If Zexion hears him, he gives no indication of it. Instead, he’s begun pacing, working back and forth over the clear space. He keeps kicking things aside as he goes, picking things up here and there to give himself more room to traverse.

Gathering together again, Demyx takes a moment before he speaks again.

“Zexion,” and that draws him up short, stops him from pacing the lone clean stretch of Demyx’s floor. Demyx tucks his feet up onto the low bar of the stool he’s sitting on, shoulders tight, and he hugs the mug of tea close to him. “Try to think. How did you know where I live?”

Zexion’s eyebrows scrunch together. Confusion about the question ripples through the empty space between them, confusion and the low-level frustration that Zexion has been carrying with him this entire time. “You mentioned it to me,” he says. “When we were in the hospital.”

Demyx shakes his head. “I don’t talk about things like that while I’m at work. I don’t have your number. I don’t have any method of contacting you. So how do you know where I live?

“It’s not like you couldn’t have found out by asking. But you didn’t, otherwise someone at work would have mentioned it, and besides, none of them know my apartment number, and you were waiting right outside of my door.”

Zexion swallows. That, more than anything else, seems to have unsettled him.

“I need your honesty,” Zexion says, quietly. “I understand that this isn’t an easy topic of discussion for you, but I had been under the impression that you had…”

“That I had…?” Demyx finished, trailing off expectantly.

“I’m not sure. I was heading home when I saw you in an alleyway, and when I went in there…” Zexion shakes his head, and confusion and a complete inability to comprehend what happened pushes at Demyx’s mind. “But then I woke up again in my room! I thought it was all… just a dream.”

“Well,” Demyx hedges. “You’re not entirely wrong? You weren’t awake. Afterwards, anyway. What did you think I had done to you?”

Zexion flushes a dull, dark red. “Honestly, I thought you had drugged me.”

“Oh.”

It’s hard to suppress his laugh, and from the wave of irritation that swamps him, Zexion isn’t exactly appreciative of that. Demyx brushes it off. “Don’t worry, I didn’t drug you. Just. Violated your mind. A bit. I think. You know.”

“You what.”

“I. Um. Well, I….” Demyx can’t breathe. He has to say it.

It’s the first time he’s going to say it.

Out loud, to someone else, and he squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath.

“I’m an empath.”

And he looks up at Zexion through his lashes, his heartbeat and the vague hum of the heating unit all he can hear. Zexion’s face is blank and unhelpful, and his emotions have pulled back from Demyx, evaporated inwards as Zexion thinks, and Demyx looks back down at the mug of tea between his hands. He runs a finger around the smooth rim of it.

“I can feel other people’s emotions,” he tries again. “I just sort of follow yours a bit too much, I think. I may or may not have kind of gone into your mind a little bit, but I’m not too sure what I did myself, so I’m just as lost as you are. Only not. Except I know I massively invaded your privacy which isn’t cool at all, and that’s shitty-”

“It’s impossible,” Zexion says, almost to himself.

Demyx winces. “Not, really. It’s really, really not that impossible. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember.”

“This is quite the elaborate hoax you have going on here, Demyx-”

“Hoax? This isn’t a hoax, Zexion, I would give anything-”

“-but I’m afraid that I will not suffer being made a fool of like this-”

There’s a slam, skin against solid surface, and the sudden fury that boils up inside of Demyx makes his hands throb only harder. Zexion’s mouth snaps shut, surprised, as Demyx hisses into the sudden quiet, “Do you know what I would give to only have people’s body language to rely on? I live with people in my head, and it fucking hurts, Zexion. You’re the only one that doesn’t hurt, and I’m going insane with it. I want to be normal, I don’t want this, but it’s what I’ve got. I would kill to be normal. I think I almost might have.”

Zexion’s head cocks. “What do you mean?”

Letting out a long sigh, Demyx picks up his mug again, cradling it against his chest. “I was unconscious when you found me. I don’t know how I got there, but I only woke up when you touched me. I don’t remember anything. I woke up alone in my bed the next morning with the vaguest memory of dragging you back to yours, and afterwards, I felt great.”

He lets that sit for a bit, as Zexion sips at his tea cautiously. “I’m afraid I’m missing a few puzzle pieces here,” Zexion says finally, carefully neutral in tone. Demyx can feel a similar sort of hedging from his emotions, and he sighs.

“Feeling other people’s emotions hurts, okay? Like. Pressing on a big open wound sort of hurts. A lot. And I don’t understand why, but your emotions don’t. Don’t hurt at all. You’re not easier to read, but you hurt a whole hell of a lot less than everyone else I’ve ever met, and you make other people hurt less too, which is great for me.”

“So why do you think I know where you live, if you’re the empath here?”

Demyx shrugs. “Transference. You got something from me, same as I got something from you. I’ve never been that deeply inside someone unless I’m at the club before, so.”

There is a long, long pause, and Demyx can feel Zexion thinking through all of the information he has been provided. “I can’t believe I’m actually considering this,” Zexion mutters under his breath, sitting down at the other stool in Demyx’s kitchen, and even that small admission eases the iron bands restricting Demyx’s breath. Leaning back, he fixes Demyx with a curious, blue stare. “Alright, assuming you’re telling the truth, and assuming that I believe you -which I don’t-, what exactly are we going to do? Because I don’t want to be mugged in the middle of the night like that again.”

“I don’t usually mug anyone, so I don’t really know.” Relaxing now that he has Zexion’s tacit approval, Demyx looks down at his feet, swings them idly, muffles a smile. “I’ve never done that before, not even when I got really bad.”

Zexion makes a small noise, and Demyx takes it as the query it is. Leaning back, he waves a hand idly, mentally dispersing some of the waves of curiosity welling from Zexion. “I always had sex or like, suffered through it for a week or so to get myself back on track. It worked, before. I tried it, the night I uh,” and Demyx waves a hand between himself and Zexion, “you know. Tried going to the club.”

“I take it that didn’t work as well as you had hoped,” Zexion says wryly.

“Not really, no.”

“Hm. Have you ever considered seeking help?”

“And what, just walking in and telling them, hey, yeah, so I’m an empath, can you fix me up with some mental walls or something to keep other people out?” Demyx shakes his head. “I’d get locked up.”

Zexion’s mouth ticks to the side. There’s a guilty sort of approval swirling about, and Demyx swallows roughly. Okay, so Zexion thinks he’s a little crazy. Good to know.

Demyx waits, but Zexion doesn’t say anything else. He shrugs, continuing on as if Zexion hadn’t sort of suggested that Demyx is insane. “But yeah, I mean, the club wasn’t always a perfect fix, even before I met you. It was like… tearing off an itching scab? Sort of? And you’re sutures? If that even makes sense.”

“So, you believe my presence helps you,” Zexion says after a few long moments of silence, the water tapping down between them in even, steady beats. “Just my being around you makes it easier for you to not get overwhelmed by other people.”

Demyx nods. “Not believe, it really does. It feels like there’s a sort of film after you leave? Sort of like… Gloves, you know? It keeps people just that much more distant, which is apparently a distance that I need.”

Zexion hums under his breath, fingers tapping together. Then he lets out a long sigh. “This is the longest and strangest set-up I have ever experienced.”

“I’m not trying to set you up, Zexion,” Demyx says quietly, fingers tight around the warm coffee mug. “You asked for an explanation, so I gave it to you.”

Zexion stills at that, then nods once, quick and apologetic, before he lets out a long, long sigh. He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Drugs would have made more sense than this.”

Demyx’s mouth ticks to the side, almost humorous. “Drugs would have been easier for me.”

“I’m not quite sure of that,” Zexion says, “ And you’ll have to excuse me for my, ah, disbelief, but you do understand that claims of being an empath are, well, quite impossible to acknowledge. There’s no scientific precedent, there’s no sure thing….”

Demyx takes a moment to let Zexion peter himself off, and when Zexion finally reaches the end of his sentences, shrugs, his scowl tight across his face, mouth bowed in a small, unhappy line, Demyx shrugs.

“Well, Zexion, if there was anybody here who how impossible it is, I’d say it would be me. Not you. I’m not exactly looking forward to this. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t ask for this at all.” Demyx swallows, rough. Tears are suddenly prickling at the corners of his eyes, and he shakes them off.

A long moment of silence stretches between the two. Demyx watches Zexion. Watches him closely and carefully. Zexion holds his mug up to his mouth, eyes distant as he thinks. He is unmoving except for his fingertips, which tap idly on the table and rim of his cup, and Demyx notices now that he is not completely relaxed either, a furrow forming between his brows. If Demyx reaches, he can sense the sigil lotus, see its colors shifting with each new thought of Zexion’s.

Early morning sunlight finally tilts through the blinds and brushes across the pale bridge of Zexion’s nose, making his eyelashes seem almost translucent over his vibrant eyes.

(Demyx’s heart beats quicker, almost painfully so.)

Zexion finally nods, breaking the stillness that he had carried with him like a shroud of armor, and the tenseness around his shoulders dissipates. Demyx, hopefully, pokes his senses out again. It’s a relief to find the water that surrounds him more welcoming now, less like a stranglehold around his neck, waiting to drag him down.

“I’m going to need some time to process this,” Zexion says, and Demyx nods immediately.

Of course.

Of course he does.

Demyx understands that. If it had been Demyx is Zexion’s shoes, he would have probably run out screaming by now. He’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially since Zexion has run away yet.

(No, instead Zexion has sought him out, and isn’t that just peculiar.)

Demyx and Zexion finish their drinks in a companionable sort of silence, one where Demyx can quite clearly Zexion thinking about something. The turn of his thoughts is oddly transparent, Demyx being able to tell that Zexion is musing things over, dismissing certain ideas and plans for various unknown reasons. His eyes flicker up towards Demyx time and time again, considering. Unlike other times when people have given Demyx these kinds of looks, he doesn’t mind, closes his own eyes, and enjoys the fact that someone is giving him any kind of attention.

The fact that, finally, after twenty-four years, somebody _knows_.

Demyx is just able to notice that some decision has been made from some change in the feelings around him. He delights in this, delights in knowing these kinds of things, and Demyx opens his eyes again just as Zexion puts his drink down.

“This is what we’re going to do,” he says. Calmly and authoritatively, just enough that Demyx doesn’t think of anything other than to nod. “I am going to need a few days. Sort of to still wrap my head around this, and to figure out exactly what it is I can do to help you.”

Demyx nods. “That’s about what I expected, yeah. I didn’t-. I don’t-.” He sighs, frustrated, and tries again, organizing himself. “I don’t know what to do, so I can’t exactly expect you to be able to figure it out.”

Zexion looks up at him, and there’s almost a smile curling the corner of his mouth. “In the meantime, I need your assurance on a number of things. One, please do not seek me out. I have no doubt that you know where my apartment is, just as I know where yours is. Two, for my sake, try not to get yourself into any trouble. I will come to you, when the time is right.”

Demyx swallows. He doesn’t know how long that’s gonna be from now, and suddenly all of the ease he has is quickly evaporating. What if it’s days, weeks, even _months_ from now? What if Zexion forgets?

But regardless, he nods. “I can always go to the club or something, if things get too bad before you make up your mind about what to do.”

He is surprised, almost immediately, by the sudden snap of anger and determination flooding him. Maybe not quite anger, but something closer to simple authority. Zexion quickly follows it with a simple, “No.”

Demyx blinks.

“Demyx, that doesn’t help. You told me that. It’s only a temporary reset, and it didn’t work last time after you met me, remember? Do not go to the club. Please. I have a feeling it’s only going to make you feel worse. You shouldn’t want to do that to yourself.”

There’s a long moment where Demyx. Doesn’t move. And Zexion watches him, eyes focused and narrow. Slowly, achingly slow, Demyx nods.

Zexion’s right.

He shouldn’t want to do that to himself.

Demyx’s agreement seems to ease the last of Zexion’s unease, and he leans back in his chair. (Demyx hadn’t actually been aware that he had leaned forward in the first place.) But Zexion stands and heads towards the door with a short nod. Demyx scrambles up after him.

“I’ll… see you in a few days?” Demyx says hopefully, trying not to let too much of his anxiety show through, but that clearly doesn’t work. Zexion turns around, the sudden eddies of his mind reassuring and warm again. Gentle caresses of comfort, amusement, and something akin to fondness brushing up against him.

Demyx is almost certain that Zexion isn’t quite aware of what he’s doing, but either way, it feels amazing, and he isn’t going to tell him to stop.

“Yes, Demyx, I will see you again in a few days.” And Zexion nods at him, looks over the apartment once, mouth firming again, nods once to himself this time, turns around, and walks out.

The door closes behind him, taking the sense of water further and further away.

Demyx stretches as far as he can, presses himself against up the door, eyes closed, feeling the cold from the outside only as a passing sensation in comparison to Zexion’s mind, receding like the tide. He stretches and stretches, reaching further than he knew he could. The sigil lotus in his mind glows faint and faint, but no less fond, and in the final moments before he is left alone again, Demyx thinks that maybe, just maybe, it is turning back towards him.

He breathes out, holding onto that memory.

Slowly, Demyx pushes himself away from the door, and he turns quietly, his muscles weak and shaky from nerves. He crouches, sits down, lets his head hit the door with a soft _thump_. His apartment is still in shambles around him, and Demyx’s head is wrung out and tired.

But he’s not in pain.

“He said he’d come back,” Demyx whispers. An incredulous smile fights its way to the surface, and Demyx doesn’t try too hard to stop it as he curls his knees to his chest, circles his fingers against each other to feel the drag-catch of his own skin. “He’ll come back, so I won’t hurt him or anyone else again.”

Demyx looks around his apartment, breathes in, and for once, feels light and easy.

Demyx smiles, hopeful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry yourself too much about Zexion's reaction to all of this. Hopefully more will be explained as time goes on.


End file.
